Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Lawson Products First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Now I will turn the call over to Steven Hooser, Investor Relations, to provide introductions and read the safe harbor statement. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to the Lawson Products First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. With me today are Bryan King, Lawson Products Chairman; and Ron Knutson, Lawson Products' Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. During the call, they will be providing an update on the businesses from an operating and a financial perspective. Please note that statements made on this call and in the press release contain forward-looking statements concerning goals, beliefs, expectations, strategies, plans, future operating results, the underlying assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described. In addition, statements made during this call are based on the company's views as of today. The company anticipates that future developments may cause those views to change. Please consider the information presented in that light. The company may, at some point, elect to update the forward-looking statements made today, but specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. Management may also refer to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted operating income and adjusted diluted EPS. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of the earnings release. The earnings press release issued earlier today is posted on the Investor Relations section of our website at investor.lawsonproducts.com. A copy of the release has also been included in the current report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC. This call is being audio simulcast on the Internet via the Lawson Products' Investor Relations page on the company's website. A replay of the webcast will be available on that website through May 31, 2022. I would now like to turn the call over to Lawson Products' Chairman, Mr. Bryan King. Bryan?

Thank you, Steven, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be on the call this morning, and we're excited to comment on the first quarter stand-alone Lawson Products results. The purpose of this call is to discuss the operating and financial results of the Lawson Products operating company. Lawson had another great quarter and exceeded our expectations with 13.8% in sales growth. The Lawson team has continued to deliver despite inflationary and supply chain challenges that exist in the marketplace. As most of you are aware, on April 1, 2022, we completed the strategic combination of Lawson Products with TestEquity and Gexpro Services that formed a specialty distribution company. Given that this occurred subsequent to the end of the first quarter, we've been advised to limit today's comments solely on Lawson Products' performance on a standalone basis, and we will not be taking questions. Beginning with our second quarter release, which will be in early August, we'll be discussing the consolidated results of all 3 operating divisions and taking questions again. We do understand the desire for more information on what the 3 companies look like on a combined basis as well as our strategic vision for this new company going forward. Accordingly, we announced this morning that we will be conducting a separate investor call, including a question-and-answer session to further discuss the strategic combination to create a more robust value-added specialty distribution company. That call will be held on May 5 at 11 a.m. Eastern time. We look forward at that time to sharing more information on the vision and financial highlights. With that, I will now turn it over to Ron to provide insight on Lawson operations and financial performance for the first quarter. Following Ron's comments, I will come back and discuss the recent leadership changes at the Lawson Products' operating unit and provide some closing comments.

Thank you, Bryan. In terms of Lawson's performance for the quarter, we saw great progress on many fronts, including strong growth in our strategic customer relationships; continued growth in our Kent Automotive business, in particular, multisite locations; the relocation of our Western Canadian distribution center more than doubling its square footage size from 43,000 square feet to over 100,000 square feet; the continuation of our investments in the 3 initiatives of market segmentation, Torrent part washers and state and local and education initiative; our ability to manage through a tough inflationary environment while generating additional gross margin dollars to offset various cost increases; strong sales and EBITDA performance by the Bolt Supply House; and we exceeded our first quarter expectations even with increased costs in certain areas of the business, which I'll cover more in a moment. So let's start with some of the key financial takeaways for the quarter and then I'll jump into some of the details. First, consolidated sales improved by $14.3 million to $117.9 million on 1 additional selling day this quarter. Average daily sales increased 12% versus a year ago quarter and improved 8.3% over the fourth quarter of 2021. Second, our consolidated gross margin increased $5.9 million. We have proactively managed margins this quarter despite the global supply chain issues in the marketplace and inflationary pressures that we are all experiencing. And third, reported operating income was $12.1 million for the quarter compared to $4.8 million a year ago. On an adjusted basis, our EBITDA was $9.2 million, up $745,000 over the fourth quarter of 2021 and up slightly over $9.1 million a year ago quarter despite being burdened with higher labor costs, including higher health insurance claims coming out of COVID. As we reflect on the first quarter, sales continued to sequentially improve…

Thank you, Ron. Earlier this month, we announced a key leadership transition at the Lawson Products operating company. This management change was made as part of its coordinated succession plan, and we were pleased to welcome Cesar Lanuza as Lawson operating company's new President and Chief Executive Officer. Cesar is a high-energy executive with a long track record of industry successes, and he is well known for and has a reputation as a customer-centric leader. We're thrilled to have Cesar leading the team as well as the Lawson operating business to the next level of growth and profitability. Cesar stepped in right away and is already making an impact and was quickly embraced by the Lawson team. I also want to take a moment to recognize and thank Mike DeCata for his thoughtful leadership and significant contributions to the successes of Lawson over the last decade. During Mike's tenure, the company and team have grown through his commitment to operational excellence and continuous improvement. He has truly been instrumental in the company's turnaround and steady progress and a significant value created for our shareholders, and the Board and I are grateful for his leadership and drive. We're delighted to have Mike continue as a consultant to the company and as a continued shareholder. With that, I would like to close out today's call and thank you for joining us this morning. We look forward to talking to you again on May 5, and we genuinely hope you will join us for what we welcome as a robust discussion about the future for the company. Have a great afternoon and thank you very much.