Good morning, welcome to the 2026 annual meeting of the stockholders of Wabash. I am Larry J. Magee, Chair of the Board of Directors of the company, and I will act as Chair of this meeting. On behalf of the Board of Directors and Management, I thank you for joining us here today. We appreciate that each of you are registered online and are joining us virtually here today. We do believe that this format provides greater access to all of our stockholders and maximizes each stockholder's ability to engage meaningfully with us. The rules of conduct and procedures can be found on the meeting material page for this annual meeting. Kristin Glazner, our Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, and Corporate Secretary, will serve as Secretary of this meeting. All of the Directors of the company are also attending virtually.
Now, beginning on page 17 of the 2026 proxy statement, you will find the biographies for each director who are up for election. I'd like to introduce them now. First, Therese M. Bassett, Jack Voss, Trent Broberg, myself, Larry J. Magee, Ann Murtlow, Sudanshu Priyadarshi, Scott K. Sorensen, Stuart A. Taylor II, and Brent Yeagy, our President and Chief Executive Officer. I would also like to introduce the other members of our management team who are attending today. Kristin Glazner, our Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, and Corporate Secretary. Patrick Keslin, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Drew Schwartzhoff, our Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, and Donald Winston, our Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. We are also joined today by Michael Still of the company's independent registered public accounting firm, Ernst & Young LLP, who is also attending this virtual meeting.
Finally, at this time, I appoint Kevin Chow of the Coridio Group as Inspector of Elections. We provided notice of this meeting on March 31st, 2026 to stockholders of record as of March 16th, 2026. I now call the 2026 annual meeting of stockholders of the company to order. On March 16th, 2026, the record date for this annual meeting, there were 40,673,967 shares of common stock outstanding, each having one vote. A majority of our shares are represented by proxy. Therefore, a quorum is present. Based on the foregoing, I declare that the meeting is open for the conduct of business. The text of the agenda items and the proposals to be voted upon are included in the company's proxy statement sent to all stockholders in connection with this meeting.
No stockholder has requested that an item be included on the agenda. The electronic polls for voting on the proposals at this annual meeting will remain open through the conclusion of our presentation for all matters. Now, Kristin, if you would please address the formalities of this meeting.
Thank you, Mr. Magee. The first agenda item is the election of nine directors. The board of directors has nominated Therese M. Bassett, John G. Boss, Trent J. Broberg, Larry J. Magee, Ann D. Murtlow, Sudanshu Priyadarshi, Scott K. Sorensen, Stuart A. Taylor II, and Brent L. Yeagy to serve as directors of Wabash until the 2027 annual meeting or until their successors are duly elected and qualified. The company has an advance notice provision in its bylaws, and no nominations were received in accordance with that provision. Accordingly, all nominations are closed. The board recommends a vote for the election of each of the nine director nominees. If there are any questions or comments, please indicate that question at this time. The second agenda item is an advisory vote on the compensation of the company's named executive officers. The board recommends a vote for this proposal.
If there are any questions or comments, please indicate that question at this time. The third agenda item is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm for Wabash for the year ending December 31, 2026. The board recommends a vote for this proposal. If there are any questions or comments, please indicate that question at this time. Because no further business is scheduled to come before the stockholders, I declare the polls for each matter to be voted on at this meeting open and direct that a vote of the stockholders be taken by written ballot on the foregoing matters. Each holder of common stock is entitled to 1 vote for each 1 share of common stock held of record at the close of business on March 16, 2026.
Each stockholder, or such stockholder's proxy, has electronic voting capability at this time and is entitled to vote at this meeting. Any stockholder who has previously given his or her proxy need not vote unless he or she desires to revoke the proxy and vote by electronic ballot at this meeting. Does anyone still need to vote electronically or speak to the Inspector of Elections? I declare the polls for each matter voted upon at this meeting closed and direct the Inspector of Elections to review and tabulate the votes. Given the number of shares voted by proxy, the Inspector of Elections is now able to provide a preliminary report on the voting results for each of the proposals. Because the results are preliminary, they are subject to final tabulation and verification by the Inspector of Elections.
The Inspector of Elections has completed a count of the proxies submitted and has determined that a sufficient number of votes have been cast by proxy to report that all of our director nominees were elected and each of the proposals 2 and 3 were approved with at least the requisite stockholder majorities.
Thank you, Kristin. Based on the inspector's report, I hereby declare that each of Therese M. Bassett, John G. Boss, Trent J. Broberg, Larry J. Magee, Ann D. Murtlow, Sudanshu Priyadarshi, Scott K. Sorensen, Stuart A. Taylor II, and Brent L. Yeagy has been elected as a director of Wabash to serve as directors of the company until the 2027 annual meeting or until his or her successor has been duly elected and qualified. I further declare that the compensation paid to the Wabash named executive officers as disclosed in the company's proxy statement has been approved by advisory vote. Finally, I declare that the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm for Wabash for the year ending December 31st, 2026, has been ratified.
The Inspector of Elections will provide the Secretary with a written report of the final vote count with respect to all the matters voted upon today, which shall be included in the minutes of this meeting and reflected in our SEC filings. There being no further business, I hereby declare this annual meeting adjourned. Now I'd like to turn over the microphone to Mr. Brent Yeagy to present the Chief Executive Officer's report. Brent?
Thank you, Larry. It's an honor to speak to the shareholders today. First, let me refer you to our safe harbor statement. It has been revised to reflect the latest revision to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. I want to specifically talk about forward-looking statements, that they may convey the company's current expectations or forecasts of future events. All statements contained in this presentation, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, all statements regarding the company's outlook. Today, we continue to deliver on our vision while executing today and positioned for long-term value creation. Our focus today is disciplined execution, digital enablement, customer performance, and lifecycle value. What does that mean for you?
Wabash is executing for our customer, delivering consistent, reliable outcomes, reducing risk, and making it faster and easier for customers to do business with us. Our strategy: First to final mile, premium OEM products and solutions executed with extreme customer focus and execution. What's that mean for the shareholder? More focused and profitable growth through operational rigor, deep customer intimacy, targeted digital and physical innovation, driving accelerated margin growth while building more predictable Parts and Services revenue. The world around us still reflects what we believe to be the most dynamic period in logistics within our lifetime. With that, some things have changed. Specifically, the rise of artificial intelligence has continued to accelerate over the last several years, giving Wabash a greater opportunity to functionally deploy AI-related digital solutions, not only for internal process improvement, but to directly impact the customer experience.
The rise of theft, safety, and security issues are now one of the top customer issues within our space across our product lines and the markets we serve. The near-term customer focus right now is on margin recovery and capture of new revenue as rate fundamentals have become and turned positive and continued for the last few months and quarters, indicating an increase in market recovery forthcoming. Our strategic priorities will fuel long-term profitable growth for Wabash through expansion, growth, advancement, and integration. Expanding customer value through focus and execution of our first and final mile solutions. Growing in Parts and Services, advancing connected capabilities to create differentiated customer experiences, integrating a partner ecosystem to accelerate growth and increase value for our customers. How will we experience that?
Enlarging our product and service portfolio, broadening our base of revenue with lower cyclicality and stronger margins through the growth of Parts and Services, offering innovative physical and digital solutions that set Wabash apart from its competition, and adding the new capabilities through ecosystem engagement to bring it to life. Let's talk about the environment and the market backdrop that we have today. Customer demand is in transition as customers move from delaying large equipment decisions to now putting assets back to work with rebounding freight fundamentals. Market fundamentals are accelerating. Freight structure, freight loadings, and load rejections are experiencing levels not seen since 2022. We have new drive and high efficiency capacity positioned to capture additional early cycle demand. In addition, there's long-term tailwinds being created. U.S. manufacturing and supply chain localization is driving structural freight demand for decades to come.
Favorable trade enforcement actions and evolving tariff structures, specifically active anti-dumping and countervailing investigations, are reinforcing a more level competitive landscape for trailer manufacturers like Wabash. A significant aging of fleets as trailer assets have been managed with low replacement levels since 2024, frustrating carrier profitability as the market is poised to rebound. What's this mean for shareholders? Wabash is well-positioned for a return to growth and prepared to outperform expectations as the industry accelerates demand, and we are prepared to execute our strategy to build a more predictable, higher quality earning profile through profitable growth of our parts and service revenue. We're not waiting for the future, we're executing today. Disciplined execution is at the forefront. Digital innovation, simplifying our customer experience, enabling customer performance, and driving lifecycle value and uptime is what our customers are experiencing.
We're driving consistent performance through operational rigor, improved on time to promise, and a resilient domestic footprint that reduces risks and increases predictability for our customer. Using AI-enabled digital technology to accelerate transactions, increase visibility, and scale efficiency for the customer, thus creating a more durable, competitive value additive edge in the marketplace for Wabash. By equipping our customers to perform now through application expertise and integrated support network, thus improves their efficiency and uptime at a critical point in the turn in market conditions. Delivering on that lifecycle value and uptime by growing recurring revenue, by extending value beyond the sale of our OEM equipment with lifecycle support that maximizes uptime and lowers customers' total cost of ownership. As I close out this report, Wabash is positioned for performance. Wabash is not waiting on rebound.
We are focused on helping customers perform today, not a year from now, by making it easier to do business, delivering with discipline and consistency, and supporting uptime through a nationwide network. Disciplined execution. Capacity poised to perform and scale. Digital innovation that simplifies the customer experience, enabling customer performance and delivering lifecycle value and uptime. At Wabash, we're helping customers today move faster, operate more efficiently, and grow effectively. Thank you. I'm happy to take a few questions from the stockholders in virtual attendance today. If there are no more further questions, once again, thank you for attending, and this concludes our presentation.
This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.