Ken Peterman: Thanks Maria. I just want to extend the point Maria was making about the incredible and incredibly positive changes that are happening every day at Comtech. As she said, we made significant changes to our leadership structure and now have executive focused on both our key end markets as well as our key customer segments. Tim Jenkins is our Terrestrial and Wireless Network segment President and Justin Wexler is our Satellite and Space Communications segment President. We also appointed Daniel Gizinski as our Chief Strategy Officer for Defense, and Jay Whitehurst as our Chief Strategy Officer for commercial. Finally, we appointed Doug Houston, our Vice President of Global Support. Together, it means we have a leadership structure that is ready to partner with customers across business units and has expertise in the specific needs of key customer segments.
I believe that with the people we have in place, heading an organization that is itself improving every day, Comtech is poised for a successful year ahead. Before I move on to take questions, let me circle back to our bookings, which at $181 million for the quarter, were over 2x higher than our first quarter of last fiscal year. Our investors should pick this to be a clear indication that while we continue to improve the machinery of our business, we have not and will not failed to remain completely focused on solving our customers’ problems and creating unprecedented customer value in unique and innovative ways. Our contract wins during the quarter validate not only our unwavering customer focus, but also make it clear that Comtech solutions and services continue to set the standard in every one of our key markets.
It never leaves our mind that we have the most demanding customers in the world. Our technology-enabled solutions are not just field tested, they are battle tested. We welcome new Comtech — we welcome new business at Comtech. But I’m always happy to win repeat business too, because it means that these tough customers have put our products through their paces and we have measured up to their very high standards. Among the contracts were awarded during the quarter from customers we have worked with before, we saw key wins with the U.S. military as well as for the Ukrainian government, which is adding new communication systems identical to those we donated them — donated to them in March of this year. In addition, one of the largest wireless carriers in the United States, renewed our 911 services contract with them, again, underscoring that across our segments and our end markets, customers have come to know, trust, and depend upon Comtech.
With that, let me acknowledge that the road ahead will be challenging, given the macroeconomic environment that combines inflationary pressures, pandemic aftershocks, and unresolved geopolitical tensions. But we believe Comtech has never been better prepared to meet these challenges and take advantage of the opportunities they present. With new leadership, a new organization, a refreshed common operational infrastructure, and an energized and invigorated team, our One Comtech transformation is positioning us for success. One Comtech is working and we’re moving fast. And we are winning in a market that is itself growing. Now, finally, I want to take a moment to thank Fred Kornberg for his 50 years of service to Comtech. Next week, Fred will be retiring from our board and from all of us here at Comtech, we wish him well, and thank him for all his contributions over the years.
And with that, let me take your questions.
Joe Gomes: Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions.
Ken Peterman: Hi Joe.
Michael Bondi: Good evening Joe.
Joe Gomes: So, Ken, I wanted to ask you’ve now got a quarter under your belt, maybe a little more detail or color on your observations, your evaluation, your conclusions. You did some of that in your prepared remarks. So, you little — dive a little bit deeper? And where are you getting any pushback — if you’re getting any pushback on some of these changes that you’re making to the organization?
Ken Peterman: Yes, thanks, Joe. I’m going to offer perspective on that and then if Maria or Mike want to chime in, they can with respect to their — the lens through which they look through. But I’ll tell you that first of all, the move to One Comtech is challenging. And obviously, our biggest challenge here in the beginning is aligning our various businesses on the common operating practices and common operating systems. We’re moving through that aggressively and we’ve baselined, the current configuration, current operating processes that they operate on. We put an integrated master schedule together that transitions them, we prioritize those tasks and we put key metrics and key performance indicators in place so that we can measure our performance on that.
