Vulcan Materials Company ($VMC)

Welcome, everyone, to the Vulcan Materials Company 2026 Investor Day. My name is Mark Warren, Vice President of Investor Relations. We appreciate your interest in Vulcan and your participation in today's event. Vulcan is entering its 70th year as a public company, and we've been winning in aggregates since the beginning. And today, we're going to share with you how we are positioned to win the future in aggregates. But before we get started, a few housekeeping notes. First, please be reminded that today's presentation may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These risks, along with other legal disclaimers, are described in detail here and in other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures are defined and reconciled in this presentation and other SEC filings. Additionally, on your table, there's a QR code that you can use to submit a question for the Q&A portion we'll have at the end of the presentation. So take a look at that and go ahead and get your questions submitted. And with those 2 housekeeping things out of the way, let's get started. [Presentation]

Good morning. Wow. Good morning. All right. There we go. I'm Ronnie Pruitt, CEO. I recently celebrated 31 years in the industry and the past 4 years with Vulcan Materials. I am proud and privileged to be leading the men and women of Vulcan Materials into the future. I am confident you will leave later this morning with a better understanding of the talented team, the innovative approach and the financial strength that will drive Vulcan Materials to win the future in aggregates. What you will also hear is why we are the industry leader, why we're going to continue to pursue our proven strategy and how we will strategically grow our business. The roots of Vulcan Materials date back to the early 1900s, a family business called Birmingham Slag. A public company since 1956, we have now begun our 70th year of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, and we're glad to be here at the exchange today to share with you more about our future. Just like a Vulcan management presentation said from the 1980s, we decided what we wanted to do, and we concentrated on doing it better than anyone else. We have long been the premier producer of in the aggregates business, and we're now focused on winning the future. So Vulcan Materials is the most aggregates-focused U.S. public company. We operate over 420 aggregate facilities and shipped over 227 million tons last year to 23 states. On average, we generated $11.33 of cash gross profit per ton, which drove adjusted EBITDA of over $2.3 billion. With over 16.5 billion tons of permitted aggregate reserves and a very strong balance sheet, we are well positioned for continued growth. So why aggregates? Why rocks? Aggregates enjoys the strongest fundamentals and lower risk through the cycle compared to other construction materials. That is because aggregates have durable pricing, and we are the pricing leader. Aggregates pricing has been consistently growing over the last 40 years despite demand cyclicality. So let's talk about why. Just think aggregates are used in all forms of construction, both public and private. There are limited substitutes and the barriers to entry are high. Crushing aggregates is a mechanical process, so it can easily be scaled no matter what demand is doing. And rocks are heavy. So this creates wide logistical moats, which means location is key. And Vulcan has built a unique and irreplaceable asset base over the last 70 years. We have a diversified revenue mix from 23 states and 35 of the top 50 fastest-growing MSAs. Vulcan is in the right markets. And even more importantly, in those markets, our position is advantaged. Approximately 90% of our revenue comes from markets where we hold a #1 or #2 position, which is key in our pricing leadership. So quality assets offer a very strong foundation, but maximizing the value of those assets means having the right people to manage them. Our leadership team is experienced and aligned, entrepreneurial and agile and deeply committed to driving continued growth and value creation for all of our stakeholders, our customers, our employees, our communities and you, our shareholders. I'm looking forward to you hearing later from some of this team today. So the collective leadership of Vulcan that I just presented, our predecessors and our Board of Directors have fostered a safety culture at Vulcan that is profoundly dedicated to a proactive engagement. We strongly believe that using forward-looking metrics to proactively engage, influence behaviors and reduce job risk is key to keeping our employees safe. So when it comes to safety, no backwards-looking metric is ever good enough, unless it's 0. So safety will always be and has always been fundamental at Vulcan Materials. Our employees and their safety will always be our #1 focus. So our two-pronged approach to growth is key to driving sustainable value creation. The men and women of Vulcan Materials are dedicated each and every day to growing our underlying business through improved profitability. We call this enhancing our core. We also have entrepreneurial division leaders that partner with dedicated business development teams to continue to grow and optimize our portfolio. We call this expanding our reach. So I want to quickly share with you what we've been able to accomplish on both sides of our strategy since the last time we stood here in 2022. We've remained dedicated to our strategic disciplines that drive how we run and continuously improve our underlying business. The Vulcan Way of selling and the Vulcan Way of operating are ingrained in our culture and are fundamental to our organic growth. Since 2022, we've made numerous enhancements to our strategic disciplines on both the operational and commercial sides of our business. Process intelligence and daily labor scheduling have been key focus areas for Vulcan Way of operating. A new CRM platform with robust project leads as well as a full implementation of our proprietary pricing tool have been big wins for Vulcan Way of Selling. The innovative mindset of our employees, the strategic deployment of our technology have underpinned these achievements and helped drive a 45% improvement in our aggregates cash gross profit per ton. We've supplemented that organic growth with meaningful expansion of our franchise over the past 3.5 years. Through strategic acquisitions and complementary greenfield investments, we've added over 36 aggregate operations in 7 of our top 10 revenue states. We've also optimized our portfolio by divesting of some downstream assets that were more strategic for the buyer than they were for us. So before we move on to what lies ahead, let me quickly recap you what we've delivered since our last Investor Day in 2022. Most importantly, we've already achieved our aggregates cash gross profit per ton that we established of $11 to $12 and on far fewer tons than the 260 million to 270 million tons that we framed with that target. This achievement is a perfect example of our commitment to controlling what we can control. Look, we cannot control demand. But what we can control is how we execute to maximize the value of our products and minimize the cost it takes us to produce them by leveraging our talent, our technology and our strategic disciplines to expand unit profitability on every ton we sell. And I am proud of what our team has accomplished with the $11.33 per ton that we delivered in 2025. And so why should you care about aggregates cash gross profit per ton? Because it is fundamental to our best-in-class earnings growth. Look, over the last 3 years, we have outpaced our industry peers. Our overall revenue, EBITDA and cash generation depict the powerful combination of our two-pronged growth strategy. And you can expect continued compounding unit profitability improvements and earnings growth as we go into the future. So I see several catalysts that are going to influence how we win the future in aggregates. First is a focus on innovation and technology. Second is an improving demand environment. And third is an advantaged footprint. So technology to date has played a key role in enhancing our strategic advantages. In 2022, we began to reimagine what IT should look like at Vulcan. We hired a new CIO. You're going to get to meet Krzysztof after a while. And we made organizational changes to support the vision of our IT group, a vision focused on optimizing our business by leveraging digital technology to build and sustain competitive advantages and to win with our strategy. Our advances since 2022 have been noteworthy. Some of them I've already talked about with Vulcan Way of Selling and Vulcan Way of Operating, and you're going to hear a lot more about that today. We have built a scalable foundation of people, process and technologies that enables us to quickly evaluate and adapt new capabilities that can further accelerate our margin improvement. Innovation and technology are core to how we strategically run our business and the first catalyst I mentioned on how we will win the future. The second catalyst is an improving demand environment. So although still weak today, fundamentals support an eventual recovery in residential construction. For 3 of the last 5 years, actual housing starts have not even kept pace with household formations. And in our footprint, especially, demographic trends support the need for additional housing. And the good news is when residential growth does occur, it's going to also spur other nonresidential investments like traditional commercial and institutional projects. While those traditional nonresidential categories have lagged recently, industrial categories have shown some strength. Data centers has been a tailwind. Warehouses have bottomed and are poised to grow again, reshoring efforts support growth in manufacturing and energy investments are going to be critical to feed data centers and support the age of artificial intelligence. Our footprint positions us well to benefit from growth in private nonresidential construction. And our scale within that footprint gives us an advantage to serve large complex projects. And you're going to see a couple of videos today and hear directly from our customers how that advantage plays out every day. The same is true on the public side. As a result of IIJA, contract awards in the U.S. are at record levels for both highway construction and public infrastructure investment. Our Vulcan states as represented in blue, have significant momentum advantage over other states. And the good news is, we expect public activity to continue to grow in the future. Look, with only 50% of the IIJA dollars spent to date, we are already well positioned for healthy highway construction into 2027 and even into 2028. And we fully expect a reauthorization of highway funding, which if history tells us anything, will be at greater levels than the prior commitments. So I'll remind you again, for both public and private demand opportunities, our footprint is advantaged, and it's the third catalyst of our future growth. Growing demographics equate to the need for new construction. And Vulcan states are projected to far outpace the rest of the country in terms of population, employment and household growth. This backdrop aligns with 2/3 of public spending and 70% of private dollars being awarded in Vulcan states. We are in the right markets for superior growth as demand improves. And of course, regardless of the demand environment, what we are most focused on is controlling what we can control and delivering superior unit profitability growth. So now I want you to hear from some of my colleagues on how we're going to do that through Vulcan Way of Selling, Vulcan Way of Operating and Vulcan Way of Talent. We're going to start with Jamie. He's going to talk on the commercial side, and then Brent Goodsell is going to come up and speak on the operations side. And then Mitesh is going to come up and talk about our approach to talent. And then after the break -- sorry, before the break, we're going to have a fireside chat. So I'm going to bring the 3 of them up along with Krzysztof, our CIO, and we'll dig into how we're enhancing our core. And then after that, you're going to hear from Jerry on how we're going to grow this business. And then Mary Andrews will be the grand finale on our new financial targets that I'm sure all of you are waiting on. So with that, Jamie, the stage is all yours.

Thank you, Ronnie, and good morning. My name is Jamie Polomsky, and I'm the Senior Vice President of the West. I've been at Vulcan for nearly 20 years in a variety of roles, ranging from sales, logistics and general management. I also was on the original team that defined the concept and the vision for the Vulcan Way of Selling. The Vulcan Way of Selling is our sales culture. The Vulcan Way of Selling ensures we are the supplier of choice. Today, I'll provide a high-level overview. I'll showcase Vulcan Way of Selling in action, highlighting our customer experience, followed by a discussion on recent technology enhancements. Again, the Vulcan Way of Selling ensures we are the supplier of choice. It integrates our people, our customer-focused sales organization with a foundational process, a defined sales playbook that guides our approach to the market, combined with a technology platform that enhances efficiencies for our internal teams and provides customer engagement. The ultimate goal is to position Vulcan as a supplier of choice and to secure long-term customer loyalty. Let's take a look at a video that showcases Vulcan Way of Selling in action. [Presentation]

So you just heard the quote from one of our largest customers. Of all the competitors, they can't do it. They don't have the capabilities you all do. Becoming the supplier of choice starts with the Vulcan Way of Selling. Vulcan Way of Selling is a more strategic approach, and it ensures we have the right people in the right seats to win. The sales service center is where analysts use a data-driven approach to determine the project strategy and overall pricing. So in the video that you just saw, our analysts are looking at our network of plants and proposing the combination of supply points based on logistics, inventories and profitability. Our sales reps then take this recommendation and convert it into a project win based on their knowledge of the market and their customer relationships. This model is scalable and repeatable, and we know that it is delivering superior execution across our entire footprint. Vulcan Way of Selling is a cultural transformation that differentiates us from the industry and provides us with a competitive advantage. This journey began in 2017. And as I told you in my opening, I was on the original team that defined the concept, and I was one of the first sales analysts in our very first sales service center in Chicago. Over the years, we have developed key components, including a sales playbook, performance metrics that focus on key sales activities. We've established and scaled the sales service centers across our entire footprint, and we've adopted internal and external sales technology. The Vulcan Way of Selling is no longer an initiative for us. The Vulcan Way of Selling is our sales culture. We are committed to the continuous investment in the Vulcan Way of Selling. With a strong foundation in people and process, our focus is squarely on technology enhancements. These technology investments accelerate our internal team's efficiencies and solidify an industry-leading customer experience. Since 2022, we've developed a pricing tool and a mobile platform for our sales organization. We continue to invest in our customer portal and the development of job site productivity tools that directly improve our customers' efficiencies. Let's take a look at another video that will demonstrate these tools in action. [Presentation]

This video illustrates how the seamless integration of people, process and technology is a core mechanism that delivers the exceptional customer experience that is expected. We have over 28,000 users on our customer portal who submitted over $2 billion in payments, and we expect this number to grow as more customers become familiar with the portal. Our commercial teams in 2025 followed up on over 14,000 jobs and converted 38,000 quotes to orders. Most importantly, though, the Vulcan Way of Selling is delivering results. We've had superior performance. Our aggregates price growth has outpaced our peers and the overall industry. The Vulcan Way of Selling is working. It's not just a concept. It's a proven commercial model that is delivering financial results. Now I'll turn it over to my colleague, Brent Goodsell, who will discuss Vulcan Way of Operating.

Good morning. It's great to be here today. My name is Brent Goodsell, and I joined Vulcan Materials 5 years ago as a Division President. Now my career and background has been leadership and operational focused in a similar industry. Today, I'm responsible for Vulcan's Eastern operations. That's Illinois, down to Alabama and east to the East Coast. And I'm excited to talk to you today about the Vulcan Way of Operating. It's our operating strategy, discipline and model. And it's how Vulcan Materials differentiates itself from its competitors. Now shortly, I'll walk you through a few examples of that differentiation. And I'm also going to discuss the journey of what we've accomplished, where we're at today and what's next. The Vulcan Way of Operating, VWO consists of 3 important pillars: our assets, our people and our customers. What underpins our success in the Vulcan Way of Operating is the Vulcan culture. Now Ronnie talked about the strength and success of our safety program, which is driven by our safety culture. That same culture is the cornerstone of our operations, which is built by our people. Now our operations in our industry is focused on 2 things: assets and people, those first 2 pillars. And as Vulcan focuses on those first 2 pillars, it helps us create pillar #3, winning our customers. That's how VWO ties to what Jamie just talked about with VWS. So where have we been and what have we accomplished? Our journey has been machine focused. Our assets, the first pillar on that last slide. More specifically, our implementation of process intelligence within our assets. Process Intelligence, we refer to it as PI, is Vulcan's digital technology platform that produces 75% of our aggregates. It's dynamic. Now others in our industry utilize automation technology, and it's dated and it's static. Now I'll walk you through the differences in greater detail in a minute, and I'll talk about why that's important. Now as you can see, our journey from 2019 to 2024, we scaled and accomplished the installation of process intelligence within 125 of our top plants. And we created 11 operations support centers. Now this was not an easy plug-and-play process. As you can see, this took some time. It took about 5 years. So why did it take us 5 years? That's 125 outdoor site installations. And we're not in buildings, warehouses. We're not in climate-controlled environments. This is outside. And it's technology in tough environments, all weather conditions, dusty and dirty conditions. Now the point here is this is not an easy plug-and-play process. This is not technology that you're just going to pull off the shelf and easily replicate. Vulcan Materials is ahead of the industry with plant technology. And you can see today, we're making great strides, and we're well ahead in utilizing this dynamic technology with process intelligence. And like I said earlier, 75% of our aggregate is produced with process intelligence. That's over 7,000 plant assets connected to PI. And today, 90% of our plants installed with process intelligence operate with what we call high utilization. The high utilization means our plant operators are proficient in using this technology. So what are we focused on today? Our people. Pillar #2 on that first slide, developing our plant operators, the employees directly engaged and utilizing this technology. To effectively maximize the benefits of process intelligence to drive the results, it's about developing our plant operators, having the right behaviors, developing the right skill sets, plant operators demonstrating critical thinking capabilities and then being comfortable interacting with this technology and being self-driven because we're always looking for that next opportunity to drive efficiencies. It's about the right person in the right seat driving the results. And as I just talked about, it's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. So why is it so important? Results through differentiation. I'll describe how Vulcan's process intelligence platform is superior to automation technology. Now automation technology, that's what the industry and our competitors utilize today. Now what you see here, this is automation. It's the same technology that's been utilized for over 25 years. Just think about that. Think about the cell phones that we all have today. What if those are the same cell phones that we used 25 years ago. Now like I said in our journey, Vulcan moved away from this technology and started moving away from it in 2019. So why did we do that? Because automation is static and you can't interact with it. Now looking at the screen here, what this tells you is which components in your plant are running the green lights, which components of your plant are not, the red lights. Automation is a digital on-off switch, and it has limitations. Now sure, digital is replacing paper and it's a guide, but it leaves plant operators guessing at what the plant can really do. With the limited ability to interact, operators are going to operate at their own comfort levels. They're going to be hesitant to push the plant. Why? Because they want to keep the plant -- they want to keep the lights green. They want to keep the plant running. They don't want to shut the plant down. They're not focusing on what that plant can actually do. The problem is we found this created inconsistencies among our plant operators. But more importantly, it creates inconsistency among your plant's performance. Maximum throughput within the plant is going to remain unknown because you can't see it. Now you can see this screen looks very different than the last. This is Vulcan's process intelligence. The heartbeats that you see on the screen show real-time performance. And any deviations in those heartbeats, that allows the operators to troubleshoot on the fly, make instantaneous adjustments, minimizing those inefficiencies. Now green isn't always good because those deviations, they show you where you have opportunity. And process intelligence allows for target-setting capabilities, set stretch goals to maximize your plant's performance. Again, focus on those deviations to find opportunities to increase your throughput. It also connects the plant operator, managers and those operations support centers, all in real time. And those 11 operations support centers that I referenced earlier, they can monitor multiple sites at the same time from a remote location. They're coaching, offering feedback and supporting those plant managers in real time all day long. I'd like to think of those operation support centers as kind of like an offensive coordinator, sitting up in the Plyo Boxe, looking down, surveying the plants, communicating directly with that plant operator. Now they both can look at the screen, see what's going on, relying on each other for help to make us better. The whole team is now connected on the same page. Everyone knows the play, everyone is executing that play. Process intelligence is dynamic. Now I'm going to show a short video. This is actual footage shot in real time. You're going to meet Roger. Roger is a 10-year Vulcan employee and a plant operator out in San Antonio, Texas. Notice how he is interacting with the technology and making immediate adjustments. Here's Roger. [Presentation]

So having seen our technology in action, now we get to talk about the good stuff. Let me share some of the results that we're seeing due to our differentiation through process intelligence. We produce more of the products that our customers demand. We saw an increase in yield. More production tons in less hours. We experienced a decrease in overtime hours. And by the way, that's our most expensive labor. And we produced more tons. We saw an increase in throughput. This allows us to put more tons through the plant at a faster pace. You put all these together, we produce the right tons in less hours. And personally, I think that's a great slide. But where is the cash? This graph shows the difference in production costs in 2025. Sites utilizing process intelligence experienced less than a 1% increase in year-over-year production cost. Guys, they are beating inflation. Sites without process intelligence and those utilizing the automation system that I referenced, they experienced a 2.6% increase in year-over-year production cost. And like I said, 75% of our production tons are produced with process intelligence. Now we're not done with plant operator development or our technology. We continue -- we expect to continue to further drive results with our digital platform. So what's next? What's the future of Vulcan way of operating? As we continue to refine process intelligence to drive efficiency, we're focusing on pit development. This is the beginning of our production process, creating the most efficient size material before it even enters the plant. So on the screen, the picture on your left, we're utilizing 3D imaging to achieve the most efficient mine plan sequencing. It allows us to better understand our geology to lay out more efficient shots, helps us create more efficient blasts, minimizing that oversized material that requires secondary breakage, which is an additional cost. Second picture from your left, you'll see we're utilizing autonomous drills within our fleet. It gets the operator out of the cab into a better work environment. Operators now have more access to technology. They're operating these drills with tablets instead of joysticks. And we're geocoding drill hole locations to be more accurate and precise with our blast patterns. And drones are assisting us in the setup and the preparation process. Now I have one more video to show you. This is going to show how we're utilizing all the technology I just talked about with pit optimization. [Presentation]

I assume most of you that's the first time you've seen a shot go like that. I was just watching your faces and it was pretty cool. The only thing more exhilarating than that is being able to push the button. So if you ever tour a quarry sometimes, make sure you ask to do that. When I look at that video, the first thing you think about is all the technology I talked about, we're using it there. And because of the size of the blast, and it was one of the unique ones in our company history, right afterwards, I called their operations leadership, just asked a simple question. How the blast go? And I was expecting to hear about the technology and all that. This isn't what they talked about. What they talked about is how efficient that blast was, the size of the material. The quote that came back from one of the operations leader was that shot pulverized that stone. It is the perfect size, and it's going to run efficiently through our plant. That's what we want to see with pit optimization. So now if I can take you back to that first slide, the 3 pillars of the Vulcan Way of Operating, assets. We're utilizing our assets with process intelligence. People. We're developing our people to be optimal users of this technology and make products at the lowest possible cost and winning our customers, making the right products at the right time, ensuring availability of quality material. This is how process intelligence allows us to cater more effectively and efficiently to our customers. And this is how process intelligence differentiates Vulcan Materials. I appreciate your time today talking about the Vulcan Way of Operating and really talking about our journey of where we've been, our assets and our PI. Where we're at, plant operator, people development and where we're heading next, our relentless drive to increase efficiencies. Now I'll turn it over to Mitesh Shah to talk about our people.

Good morning. Still kind of sleep, I got it. My name is Mitesh Shah. I'm privileged to serve as Chief Human Resources Officer of this great company. I got a chance to meet with a lot of you all last night. It was great to see you there and excited to talk to you today about our people. And I've been with Vulcan for almost a decade. I've gotten to take my experience out of many roles, both as Division President and as Deputy General Counsel and now with CHRO, lead the Vulcan Way of Talent as we drive the growth and development of our people. I'm thrilled about the opportunities ahead of us, and I'd love to talk to you all about what Vulcan is doing better than anyone else and why this is a competitive advantage. Look, at the end of the day, the Vulcan Way of Talent is the connection between the Vulcan Way of Operations and the Vulcan Way of Sales. It is the behaviors that are ingrained in our culture that make these disciplines work. We've had years of success executing on these behaviors, and we're getting better every single day. The Vulcan Way of Talent is what drives these outcomes, and it's based on 3 pillars. First, exceptional talent. We hire the very best in the industry. We're the brand of choice, and we hire based on our core values. Second, we offer world-class training through our proprietary Vulcan University platform. And third, we have a culture of performance that drives ownership and accountability. Look, we have high expectations of ourselves and of each other. Talent at the very beginning is how we hire, and it's focused on who we bring into the Vulcan family. At Vulcan, we hire for character and we train for skill. We seek folks who are driven, curious, team players, driven because they're more likely to be self-starters, -- curious because they're more eager to learn and team players because they focus on lifting up others. Look, these aren't some ambitious goals or fancy buzzwords we used at Investor Day in New York. This is an intentional process at Vulcan. It's a specific system in how we pull these qualities out of each of our applicants. And folks, I'll tell you, if we have somebody who's got skill and experience but does not meet this standard, we'll take a pass, and we're better for it. If you look at the challenges in the market that you hear about across many industries around challenges in finding skilled labor, recruiting and retaining labor. Vulcan has solved this problem by building our own. With our operations trainee program, apprenticeship program, supervisor development program, we have partnered with the best trade schools, the best universities and taken solid talent from within, and we put thousands of people through our programs for supervisors, electricians, mechanics and much, much more. These graduates are now on a path to a long and prosperous career at Vulcan. And finally, we stretch capabilities early. Look, we don't believe in this mantra that you've got to wait your turn. If you're a high performer and you produce exceptional results, you will have early opportunities at Vulcan because we know that the best way talent learns is through early experience. Now look, we -- now that we've hired the very best people, we train them using our Vulcan University platform. While other companies struggle with brain drain, retirements or experience leaving their ranks, we have captured decades of knowledge and made it instantly available on an application right on your phone. The training is an archive of our very best practices in all of our disciplines with VWO and VWS. These classes are meant to expedite the learning curve, and it is proprietary to Vulcan. Now we marry these exceptional tools on the Vulcan platform with field-based training. We have on-site trainers that focus on critical skills across every division. These critical skills are the skills that have an outsized impact on the P&L because they drive plant availability and throughput. This training allows us and continues to allow us to be the most profitable operators in the industry. Now we've taken the very best. We've given them elite training. We ingrain our culture of performance. We all know that leadership is paramount to the success of any organization. Vulcan takes this and puts it in 3 programs. The first, before you can lead your others, you've got to lead yourself. Our leadership journey starts with personal accountability, ownership and discipline. Now as you grow in your career, as you start to have direct reports, -- you're going to start looking at more of the performance coach model, not the boss model. We're trying to help our team that has now got people that they have to lead to develop new talent, develop young talent and help them excel. And finally, as you continue to grow in your careers, you continue to grow in your rank and your expertise, the focus now turns to strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation. It helps us excel faster, move with speed and have a greater impact across our enterprise. All of this is focused on a service-based model of leadership where we focus on lifting up and building others. The process of growing and developing our talent at Vulcan is what makes the BWO and the VWS model work, because no matter where you go, we have enterprise-wide consistency. We have one language, one culture. You can -- whether you're a plant operator in California, a sales rep in Texas or a mechanic in Florida, you know the expectations and the behaviors that are demanded in your discipline. It's why we can stretch folks early, and it's why we can move them seamlessly. And it's why we can integrate an acquisition faster than anybody in the market because we bring our culture of performance immediately, and we see results faster. They say the employee experience is a leading indicator of the customer experience. These awards show how our people feel about what they have built. We did not ask for this recognition, but it's proof that the market is paying attention. We know that when our employees win, our customers win. When our customers win, our shareholders win. Now I'd love for you to see a video and hear from the very best in the business. [Presentation]

Vulcan employees here with us today and many more watching live. Folks, this is how we all feel about this great company. It's an honor to work here. This is the team that will win the future. Thank you for your interest in Vulcan, and I'm going to ask my colleagues to come up here. We're going to do a Q&A -- excuse me, a fireside chat with Ronnie.

All right. Thank you, guys. So we're approaching the halfway mark. And the first part of our two-pronged strategy is how we're enhancing our core. And I hope you got some good insight from this team that's leading on how we are enhancing our core. So we're going to have a little fireside chat here. But first, I want to welcome a new guy to the stage. He hasn't got to introduce himself yet. So Krzysztof, why don't you tell our group here a little bit about yourself?

Sure. Thanks, Ronnie. Good morning, everybody. My name is Krzysztof Soltan. I'm the Chief Information Officer for Vulcan Materials. I've been with the company for 4 years now. And I had the privilege of leading a dedicated and extremely talented technology team. A little bit about myself. My career started in the United States Marine Corps. I've had the privilege of working in lots of different industries, starting with life sciences, aerospace, capital markets, transportation, health care, to name a few, and now construction aggregates. I've had an opportunity to deliver digital experiences for customers and employees, drive digital transformations, support acquisitions, dispositions as well as utilizing asset data to drive and deliver business outcomes. I've had an opportunity to do that at companies such as General Electric, ABB, Johnson Controls and now Vulcan Materials. Thank you.

Well, we're lucky to have you. Thank you. So let's start with -- look, we talked about the journey, the journey with Vulcan Way of Selling and the Vulcan Way of Operating. And we are beginning to open up more and more around what that journey look like, what it means to us and how we're going to continue to lead this industry. And we get often asked like, okay, well, when you start opening this up, I mean, there's lots of technology out there. People can just copy this and how are you going to sustain those advantages? So Jamie, why don't you start with how important this culture side is and how this journey has been our people-driven just as much as the technology we've invested in.

Yes. Thanks, Ronnie. Great question. As I mentioned in my remarks, we've been at Vulcan Way of Selling since 2017. And it's not about the technology. It's about the people and the process. And it's really trying to get the right behaviors in your organization, and that takes time. As much as we want to believe that a new process, a new technology will be adopted over day 1, it just doesn't happen. So from 2017 to now, it is ingrained in our culture. We have the right behaviors. And with the right behaviors, now we can really focus on the technology.

Yes, outstanding. And Brent, how about Vulcan Way of Operating?

Yes. So you talked about those first 2 pillars, assets and people. And I talked about the difficulty of the assets, and it took us time to get that technology installed. But when you talk about the people and the culture, I mean, there's another hurdle there. I mean you can plug the technology in, but how do you get people to utilize it the right way and to be efficient with it. And I think the advantage Vulcan has is we started this 5 years ago. So we're ahead of the industry. And we've already seen the challenges and we put the processes in place, especially on the training and people side. So as we continue to further expand our technology platform, I think we're set up really good for it. And I think we're years ahead of the competition doing this?

Yes, it's great. So if you remember back to the video with Roger, our plant operator, I mean, you saw on the screen our process intelligence, but you also saw in the background plant [ atomization ], all the things that we said to own an office, which we call it cutting the cord. And so we're out there every day training our operators to rely on process intelligence, and it's hard. And so when people say, yes, we've got the same atomization, they don't. It's hard to train these folks. But when they grasp it, they're pushing us. I mean the great thing is once they buy into it, they're really pushing the plants. And to Brent's point, it's not how much of a comfort zone you can run in. It's how do we integrate these and really optimize our plants. And so Mitesh, talk about the culture side of it. How important is that? I mean people talk about culture a lot. But I mean, this has been a journey.

It's been a journey. And listen, big picture, you've got to have buy it, right? I mean you've got to have your folks that are buying into the very value premise of VWO and VWS. And that's where we are. And it has been a journey. But if you look and see what they've gotten out of it, I think the entire team sees the value and what this offers. And it's not just what they see, it's the fact the entire enterprise speaks the same language. I mean that one enterprise, one language, one culture is necessary. So when you look at the sales team and the operators, yes, they speak that language, but so do the support teams. So your QC techs and everyone else across the line from environmental to safety, we all speak the same language. You don't get there overnight. It is a journey. And you marry that with both the training that we offer as well as the on-field expertise that's there on site, that's hard to replicate, and we're years ahead of anybody else.

Yes, that's outstanding. And so as we talk about the journey, Krzysztof, you started in 2022, kind of right in the middle of it. I mean you inherited a lot of installations going on and connectivity. We talk about all these things and Brent described the difficult conditions. So talk about how hard it was. It's not easy to get these plants connected.

So it's very difficult. And first and foremost, I'd say everything that we do as a technology team always aligns to the company's strategy of enhancing our core and expanding our reach. That's fundamental first and foremost. Second, process intelligence, whether it's process intelligence or Vulcan Way of Sales tools or you've noticed capabilities like telematics that we're working through and piloting or other capabilities, they all rely on lots of data and connectivity. So one of the first things we needed to address is the connectivity, making sure that we have the bandwidth, technology and scalability to enable capabilities like my colleagues have mentioned throughout the presentation so far. So that was very difficult, but very fundamental to everything that we're doing today. The other thing I'll mention is, as my colleagues have talked about Vulcan Way of Sales, Vulcan Way of Operating, Vulcan Way of People, all those things are all related to people, process and how we enable technology. And what I mean by that is we have to simplify processes. We have to standardize processes and putting the foundational pieces like that in place from a culture perspective, from a people side of the house is fundamental to enabling capabilities for the future and which I'll mention also, all those components that I just talked about set us up perfectly in the use of AI for the future, which, by the way, we're already using.

Yes. No, that's great. And I would tell you, I mean, I'll give Krzysztof some kudos. So when Krzysztof first came to the company, we would have meetings about what we wanted to do and how we were going to get there. Krzysztof will start the meeting with what does it mean to the business? Not what was the investment and what new systems do we need to buy or cloud or this or that. It was like what does it mean to the business and what can we do with it? And so it's been very refreshing. And Krzysztof looks at it, like he said, this two-pronged approach, enhancing our core and expanding our reach and how this technology strategy supports that. So thank you. So let's talk about -- look, one of the things I talked about earlier on how we're going to win the future. And I said an improving demand environment. But I followed it up with we're also focused on controlling what we can control. And so the last 3 years, demand has been muted. But we've done a really good job of continuing to accelerate our price and also controlling our cost. And so as we look at these process, procedures, the evidence that it shows with our cell service centers and our technology hubs and what we're doing with our control centers, talk about the assurance that it gives you, this team on our ability to control what we can control.

Yes. So I'll start. As you mentioned, we can't control demand. So what we can control on the commercial side of our business is staying disciplined to the Vulcan Way of Selling. And this is the point of Vulcan Way of Selling is ensuring that we are selling to the entire market, small customers and large customers. We don't rely on the big home run mega projects. What we rely on is the day in and day out customers. And the framework of Vulcan Way of Selling allows us to have the right rigor and the right discipline on a weekly and monthly basis to ensure that our sales reps are following those procedures. And it's the same throughout the entire company. So if we're doing it in California, we know that we're doing in Tennessee. And that repeatable and scalable process is really ensuring that we are engaging with the entire -- all segments and all disciplines on every project.

Yes. Remember, 36,000 quotes transformer orders last year, impressive. Yes. Thank you. Brent, how about you? How we control we can control?

Yes. When we talk about what we can control, and we always talk about what you can't control, which is demand and weather, and that plays into operations, too. But what we can control is our production and our hours, right? Two big important inputs for us. And with the use of process intelligence and the technology, it helps us solve that equation faster. So we can start scaling, whether demand is up or down, we can scale at a much faster pace our production, which then goes with your hours. And we have the tools already and processes already in place. So not only can we set those plans up, but we can go back and monitor them and see how successful we were.

Yes. That's outstanding. So Mitesh, when we talk about controlling what we can control, how important is that one language? How important is that consistency? How important is it the way we train? When we train all our people the same. So how important is that?

I mean when you look at that stat we put up there, we've had 43,000 classes completed since 2022. The ability to get people to buy into that, use those learnings across our enterprise and drive consistency, it's mission-critical, right? It's our ability to roll out new products, new systems enterprise-wide and get buy-in and impact immediately. And we've got those 2 mechanisms to do that. This digitized platform for us, this Vulcan University is pretty exceptional. I mean we've taken a lot of knowledge, lots of historical knowledge, and we take this new information, and we're able to push it out immediately. Our folks can get in front of hundreds of classes and take those learnings and immediately apply them to the business. And you marry that with these on-site trainers across our enterprises that help them just -- we move with velocity. I mean we're able to move the business quicker.

So real quick, I mean, we're going to -- we'll take a break here in a minute and we're going to come back and we're going to talk about how we're going to grow this -- and growth for us is -- it comes in a lot of different forms, but a lot of that is through acquisitions. So how important is it with these tools when we acquire someone? How we integrate? I mean that's a big piece of this is how do we Vulcanize them. I mean that's what we call it Vulcanize. It's a good word. So Jamie, how do you talk about when we -- I mean, you've been through a lot of acquisitions. How quick is it?

Yes. I mean it's -- so we've done a lot of acquisitions in California over the last couple of years. And these Vulcan Way of Selling and Vulcan Way of Operations are essential for us to bring on the new employees, and it's a great framework. So having that framework knows that we're having the same conversations with our new employees that we are having with our legacy employees. So starting with that, getting the people right, having the same language, having them have a framework of how they join the company, they're appreciative of that. They know what to do. And it just accelerates the way that we can integrate our new -- and that's really all it's about the speed. We can integrate faster than anyone.

Good. How about on the operations side, Brent?

Yes. I think the same thing. I mean, we have the road map. We've done this. We've successfully installed technology in 125 plants. We have the framework with our plant operator development. So when we look at acquisitions and acquisitions may come with maybe one quarry, maybe a handful of quarries. That's a lot different than 125. So since that framework is already there, we can quickly replicate what we did in the past.

Yes.

If I may add, a lot of effort that goes into an acquisition is integrating technology and realizing synergies as a result of it. Somebody mentioned earlier on the presentation, the point that we do it better than anybody else. And that's because we've built a consistent, repeatable playbook and how do we integrate technology very quickly and get live on day 1. And that's key.

Yes. No, it is, definitely. So we'll wrap up with winning the future. I mean that's one of the themes today, and I talked about our investment and continued investment. And so we get asked a long time like what inning are you in? We're not in an inning. And we're going to continue to invest in these tools. And so as we talk about the future, Krzysztof, why don't you start with -- we've said data centers have been a big tailwind to us from a consumption standpoint and demand. But everyone wants to hear about AI, what's AI going to do? And how is AI going to affect our industry. So what is your thoughts on how AI is going to change the way Vulcan does the business?

Well, first and foremost, I'd say AI is here to stay. And as I mentioned earlier, we're already using AI to drive efficiencies and productivity within our company and providing tools and capabilities to make our employees better, more efficient in the tasks that they do on a daily basis. And that's fundamental. Second, I would say, we have to prioritize. We can dabble with a lot of different things. But if we focus on 2 or 3 big rocks, no pun intended for Vulcan and really just focus on what are the ones -- what are the use cases that are going to drive growth and EBITDA, that's where we're going to go after, and that's where we're going to pilot and scale where we see success. The other thing I would just mention, and as some of my colleagues have mentioned earlier is AI is only as good as the data that we have. Every company has lots of data these days, but we have good data with the platforms with Vulcan Way of Selling, process intelligence and all the capabilities that have been put in place over the past few years, that is fundamental. And that will set us apart for the future, and it will be a competitive advantage for us, and we will continue to be a market leader in the industry.

Outstanding. See, I understood all that. That's good. So Mitesh, you and I talk about AR, it's not accounts receivable. It's attract and retain. So we talk about our people. How are we going to continue to do that? How are we going to put Vulcan and continue to be the leader when it comes to people?

Yes, it's something we talk about every week. And look, we look at it from 2 perspectives. One, our employee value proposition. We have a very strong brand and a lot to offer anyone looking for a career. We continue to offer opportunity, prosperity, stability. You can get a career and a long path at Vulcan and join a family. The second piece of it is engagement. We got division presidents here with us today. They do an exceptional job, them and their teams across the enterprise, engaging with our people. Their focus every day is getting the truck and go. And they go see folks, engage with them, focus on ways that they can help them grow in their own careers and the relationships that you build just through those interactions show that you've got a path at Vulcan and you've got an opportunity and there are people invested in your success. And we look at success as both personal and professional success, right? I mean we all work for the loved ones at home. Our folks do as well. We want to make sure that they find satisfaction, not only professionally, but what we provide them gives them an opportunity to be successful at home as well. So we've got a strong employee value proposition. We've got a strong brand, a lot of opportunity, and we engage with our people, and I think that really sets us apart.

Yes. No, outstanding. So Jamie, what about Vulcan Way of Selling? Are we done?

No, we're not done. First, though, we need to stick to the fundamentals and maintain the culture that we've built over the several years. I think the opportunity is really how we utilize the data that we have to accelerate the decision-making of our teams. And that's both just within Vulcan Way of Selling and Vulcan Way of Operating. I also think the real opportunity, too, is where those 2 come together. How do we use the data to drive the business, not just sales, not just operations, but when we come together, what are those business units, how are they using the data to improve the speed and make the right decisions.

Yes. Outstanding. Brent, are we done?

No, we're not done. I think there's going to be a lot of technology, a lot of new technology coming at us. So there's going to be technology coming as we know about today. So I think the really important piece is how we've demonstrated how we can scale and implement that technology, train people, but more importantly, it's that Vulcan culture, being able to enable with all that new equipment and technology. And I think that's going to be the strength of our operations going forward as we sit down with Krzysztof and his team and really decide which technology is going to benefit us. From there, we can scale it because we've already done it.

Yes. Outstanding. So I hope this has been helpful. Let me give you a little more deeper dive into Vulcan Way of Selling, Vulcan Way of Operating and our Vulcan Way of Talent. And so we got another short video to show here before break. After the video is complete, we're going to take a 15-minute break. I'll remind you that your QR codes are on your tables. And so if you have questions to submit, please do that so that we'll wrap up. After break, Jerry is going to come up and talk about how we're going to grow the company and what that growth looks like. And then as I said, Mary Andrews will come up and give us our new financial targets. So we'll watch this quick video, and then we'll take a break, and then we'll come back and wrap up the day. Thank you. Appreciate it. [Presentation] [Break]

All right. Good morning. I'm Jerry Perkins, Chief Administrative Officer at Vulcan Materials, and it's a pleasure to be with you today. Over my 25-year career at Vulcan, I've had the opportunity to work on a range of acquisitions and growth projects. First in corporate as an M&A attorney and General Counsel and then later out in the field as a Division President and a Senior Vice President. And recently, I led the acquisitions of Wake Stone in North Carolina and Superior in California. And I'm privileged and I'm honored and I'm excited to lead the future growth efforts of Vulcan with this new management team. Earlier today, you heard Ronnie lay out our two-pronged strategy. And Jamie, Mitesh and Brent talked about the Vulcan Way of Selling, Vulcan Way of Operating and the Vulcan Way of Talent. Those are the engines that enhance our core and make us a superior performing company today. My focus is on the future. The second prong of our strategy, how we expand our reach and grow our operations and our asset base. Our growth strategy is built on 5 guiding principles. First, we are focused on acquiring aggregates. It's who we are. It's what we do. It's our expertise. Second, we target acquisitions where we can win, where the market structure is favorable for bolt-on acquisitions in existing markets, that means expanding our footprint and our presence to drive more opportunities and to drive synergies. And for new markets, we focus on a path to being #1 or #2. That's the kind of structure that drives profitability. Third, we don't passively wait on opportunities to come to us. We are proactive in our approach, and we build trust to get deals done. Fourth, our acquisitions come with synergies and not just the easy cost-cutting time. We leverage our scale in the Vulcan Way of Selling and the Vulcan way of operating to enhance margins and operating performance. And lastly, we constantly evaluate our portfolio. If an asset is in the hand -- is better in the hands of someone else, we're not afraid to sell it or swap it. And these 5 guiding principles support a powerful 2-part approach to expansion, M&A and greenfields. Look, our priority in Birmingham right now and across all of our divisions is simple. It's to grow our footprint. It's an expectation and it's a priority. And we are focused on having high-touch interactions with acquisition targets to build strong and lasting relationships. Our goal is to have the head seat at the table when an owner is ready to sell. And if you look at the past 4 years back to 2022, over 80% of our acquisitions have been the result of a privately negotiated exclusive transaction. That's unique. That's special. Why? Because our industry reputation means we are a buyer of choice. We don't depend on competitive auctions. When family companies choose to sell, they often choose Vulcan because they know their legacy, their operations and most importantly, their people will be in good hands. Look, M&A is in our DNA. It's how this company has been built. Let's go back 70 years to 1957, Vulcan had just gone public right here on the New York Stock Exchange. We had 51 aggregates locations and a modest $91 million in revenues. Don't we all wish we could go back and buy the stock? Halfway through that 70-year journey, we reached the monumental $1 billion in revenue mark. We had 179 aggregates locations, mostly in the South, the Midwest and Texas. And here we are today. We're the largest producer of construction aggregates in the United States with 425 aggregates locations, $8 billion in revenue and an unmatched coast-to-coast footprint. This is the direct outcome of a strategic commitment to growth that started 70 years ago and continues today. When you look at that time line, you see a rhythm, you see a discipline, you see the construction of a best-in-class network and footprint that simply cannot be replicated. So let's zoom in on our growth activities from the last 4 years. We've been busy. We've acquired 36 aggregate operations, all in key markets for us. We've also complemented that growth with the completion of greenfields, 7. And even more so, we have continued to optimize our portfolio. We will have divested 149 ready-mix plants after we close on the sale of our California ready-mix business. As a result, we will have reduced our ready-mix footprint by almost 80% from where it was just 5 years ago. Now our strategy in action, beginning with our entry into a new market, the high-growth Raleigh-Durham market. When we acquired Wake Stone, we became the #1 producer of construction aggregates in Raleigh on day 1. Look, Wake was a top pure-play aggregates producer on the East Coast. It was a true gem in a high-growth market. But the Bratton family chose to sell to us because we had developed a decades-long relationship with them. And Vulcan's culture, rich history and strong reputation were key with the Bratton family entrusting us with their operations and their employees. In the 16 months since we closed this transaction, we have fully integrated the operations, and we are leveraging the Vulcan Way of Selling and the Vulcan Way of Operating to enhance margins and drive long-term profitability. Next, a classic example of a high-value bolt-on acquisition in an existing market. Southern California, specifically San Diego. We already had a nice presence in San Diego. But with the acquisition of Superior, we solidified our presence as the #1 producer of both aggregates and asphalt in San Diego, and we will be for a mighty long time given our reserve base, the locations and the barriers to entry. And like Wake, this was a privately negotiated transaction built on our lasting relationship with the Brouwer family. We have also fully integrated these operations, and we are reaping the benefits of our expanded scale and market presence in San Diego. The aggregates industry remains highly fragmented. Vulcan is the largest producer, but we represent less than 10% of the total market. And over 2/3 of the U.S. market is controlled by private companies. That leaves us with ample opportunity to grow. Looking at all the opportunities on this map, we've identified priority targets totaling 350 million annual sales tons. More than half of that is outside our footprint. Look, the last 20 years, we've been focused on acquisitions and growing inside our footprint. And that's been critical. We have irreplaceable positions in key growth markets. But as we move forward, expect us to grow not only in our footprint, but seek attractive opportunities out of it. We will remain disciplined and selective, but the opportunities are vast. What lies ahead is truly exciting. It's a unique time in our industry. Many family-owned companies are going -- undergoing generational transitions, creating many opportunities for us. At Vulcan, our growth engine is not just powered by M&A. It's powered by greenfields, too. Why? Because where the growth is occurring, there may not be an acquisition candidate or target. And we go where the growth is, not just where the sellers are. This map of greenfield activity shows you that it's significant and widespread. We currently have 17 projects in flight, and many of those will be operational in the next several years, generating incremental margin at very attractive returns. To be clear, greenfields are difficult. They take time, they take discipline. They take local market savvy, and that's why many of our competitors avoid them. We believe our commitment to greenfields is a strategic lever that sets us apart. The South Carolina Coast is a powerful illustration of our greenfield strategy at work. A decade ago, our presence in Charleston and Myrtle Beach was limited to just 3 distribution yards. Given the projected growth in this coastal area and the limited acquisition targets, we prioritized greenfield efforts to build our own network. The results have been impressive. By the end of this year, we will have added 3 sites in Charleston, 2 in Myrtle Beach. And in 2024, Wake Stone's quarry was added. That's 6 sites, 6 sites, 3 to 9, and this solidifies our position as the #1 producer and seller of aggregates on the South Carolina Coast. In closing, this company was built on growth. It's in our DNA. And this management team has a relentless focus on growth. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mary Andrews.

Thanks, Jerry. Good morning, everyone. I'm Mary Andrews Carlisle, Chief Financial Officer. I'm approaching my 20th anniversary at Vulcan later this spring, having served in numerous finance and business development roles before stepping into the CFO seat back in 2022. And as Ronnie alluded to earlier, now that you see me standing on this stage, you know we're making our way to the punchline. I stood before many of you 3.5 years ago at our 2022 Investor Day, and I kicked off my comments by sharing that our adjusted EBITDA had grown at a compound annual growth rate of 11% over the preceding 5 years. I'm proud to stand here today and tell you that our consistent strategic focus and solid execution delivered average adjusted EBITDA growth of 13% and average operating cash flow growth of 16% over the last 3 years. As you've heard from my colleagues this morning, our teams have been very busy, continuously leveraging our strategic disciplines and thoughtfully optimizing our portfolio. Over the last 3 years, our adjusted EBITDA margin has expanded over 700 basis points, and our return on invested capital has improved over 200 basis points. And delivering on our aggregates cash gross profit per ton target of $11 to $12 has been the key to our success, and it's the foundation of our attractive cash generation. At $11.33, our aggregates cash gross profit per ton has increased 45% since 2022. And coupling that profitability improvement with a stable cash conversion cycle, operating cash flow, as you saw on the previous slide, grew to over $1.8 billion in 2025. We prioritize reinvesting in our business and consistently spend about 6% to 6.5% of revenues on operating and maintenance capital expenditures. And to complement our M&A growth, as Jerry just described, we also invest in greenfield and other growth projects, which have varied between 1% and 4% of revenues over time. And net of those total capital expenditures, free cash flow surpassed $1.1 billion in 2025. That is more than double just 3 years ago and positions us well to continue to pursue our disciplined and balanced capital allocation strategy. Over the last 3 years, we've invested -- we've deployed almost $6 billion of capital or approximately $2 billion annually on average. Our capital allocation strategy has not changed, but the level of cash generation supporting capital deployment certainly has. The average capital deployed over the last 3 years was 38% higher than the preceding 5. But over that entire time frame, we balanced reinvestment in our franchise, growth through M&A and capital returns to shareholders. And given the growing free cash flow, we have been able to increase average M&A spend by 29% over the last 3 years and to accelerate capital returns to shareholders. Jerry already shared with you about our acquisition focus and execution. So I want to spend a couple of minutes elaborating on our CapEx investments and shareholder returns. Operating and maintenance capital projects come in all shapes and sizes, from new mobile equipment to screen replacements to partial plant upgrades to full plant rebuilds. Regardless of the project size and scope, our goal is to deliver incremental value on every dollar we reinvest, improving customer service, productivity and sustainability. In Tennessee, at one of our Nashville area plants, we recently made an investment to change our wastewater handling. And this project allowed us to avoid costly settling pond cleanup to recover additional sellable product, to recycle 90% of the water used in the plant, which enabled us to limit our dependence and the cost of a municipal water supply and to reduce electricity consumption from pit pumping. This investment ensured that a key location with long-term reserves in a growing market could sustainably operate and more efficiently meet our customers' demands. Another example in Georgia, at one of our busiest and most profitable Atlanta area quarries, we're currently making a much larger investment to relocate and rebuild the processing plant. This will allow us to expose additional long-term reserves and extend the mine life by over 20 years. This facility is ideally located to reach multiple high-growth counties to service our key fixed plant customers and to participate in mega infrastructure projects. The new plant will have an increased production rate and improved water management system and an enhanced customer load-out facility. These are just 2 quick examples of operating capital in action, delivering tremendous business value and attractive returns on investment. Now we have long said that after reinvesting in our franchise that our priority use of capital is for growth through acquisitions. That remains true today and with an attractive pipeline of opportunities. But even so, given the level of cash generation, there's also an opportunity to more consistently return excess capital to shareholders. We've returned more capital to shareholders in the last 3 years than we did in the preceding 5. And we are committed to continue to steadily grow our dividend and to return excess cash to shareholders through share repurchases. Our investment-grade balance sheet is well positioned to support these capital allocation priorities. We have worked hard over time to craft and maintain a debt structure that is appropriate to the asset base and through the cycle. Our target leverage range of 2 to 2.5x keeps us importantly investment grade, which ensures that we have access to capital at every stage of the cycle, that we have a reasonable cost of capital and that we have the opportunity to place longer-dated debt that matches our long-lived asset base. And with net leverage currently at 1.8x, our balance sheet gives us the financial strength and flexibility to pursue the growth opportunities that Jerry just defined for you earlier and to consistently return capital to shareholders. So now I want to go back for a minute to one of my earlier comments, which was this, that growth in aggregates unit profitability is the key to our success and is the foundation of our attractive cash generation. So what is that going to look like going forward? Let's first look back at the compounding improvements the business has delivered over the last 8 years. Aggregates cash gross profit per ton has grown from $6 in 2017 to $11.33 in 2025. And for the last 3 years and what has been a muted demand environment, this highly important metric has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 13%, considerably higher than the preceding 5 years, and we believe structurally higher. Vulcan Materials execution has reached new heights as our teams continue to improve our underlying business through their shared commitment to our strategic disciplines. We thought it would take us 260 million to 270 million tons to achieve our previous $11 to $12 target. But as you know, we reached that target on just 227 million tons. And we now believe we have a line of sight to deliver $20 per ton of cash gross profit on those same 260 million to 270 million tons to 0, $20 per ton. So let me tell you how we're going to get there and what that could mean for overall earnings. Ronnie described for you earlier the key dynamics that we see surrounding each of the end-use markets. So our expectation is that overall, demand will grow at low single digits in the medium term. And against that backdrop, we expect to deliver high single to low double-digit improvement in aggregates cash gross profit per ton. Our Vulcan Way of Selling and Vulcan Way of Operating execution will allow us to grow revenue faster than the market and deliver operating efficiencies to help offset inflationary cost increases. This expected aggregates performance equates to $4.5 billion to $5 billion of adjusted EBITDA, double where we are today. And that's our organic growth opportunity, which leaves acquisitions, which we are well positioned to execute on as upside. Vulcan Materials has a stellar track record of compounding profitability improvements, attractive earnings growth and value creation for our shareholders. And we have the assets, the team and the strategy to continue to deliver and to achieve an exciting $20 per ton of aggregates cash gross profit. And so now with that target set and what you all came to hear today, I'm going to pass back to Ronnie for a few additional remarks before we move to Q&A.

Thank you. So $20. Wow, it's pretty impressive. Look, just 2.5 years ago, our average selling price was less than $20. Think about that. That's what we sold aggregates for. Now we see a path for $20 of adjusted -- of aggregates cash gross profit per ton. And look, what Mary Andrews described, and I hope you've got from our discussion today was a better understanding how Vulcan Materials is positioned to win the future. I referred to an earlier quote from a presentation back in the 1980s. I'm going to change that quote up a little bit. We know what we want to do, and we're going to concentrate on doing it better than anyone else. That focus is going to be on aggregates, and that focus is going to be on us being the industry leader. So look, I'm proud of the team you got to see today. We may not be Wall Street presenters, but we're rock crushers, and we're damn good at it. So thank you. Thank you for your time and interest. I'm going to turn it to Mark and Mary Andrews and I will get to answer your questions. So Mark? Fire away.

Fire away. Okay. We got a list of questions here. I try to group them together. I think maybe a place to start is to talk about demand, demand environment. So maybe we try to talk about demand environment and how that supports the targets that we just presented. Maybe just give them a flavor for that.

So the targets we laid out were, I mean, I think a pretty conservative look at demand. As we went into 2026, -- we had insight into seeing that we were going to be in a state of recovery after 3 years of muted demand. And we said, look, public was probably our clearest line of sight. We still got good funding going on. IIJA dollars are still being spent, still some left to be awarded before the expiration of the bill. So public is good. And then we talked about private nonres, and we talked about data centers being a tailwind. We also talked about some reshoring efforts happening. And I think we're in a good spot as we see 2026 playing out that we are starting to see the signs of recovery, and it's going to be slow. But as we look at these numbers that we presented and what Mary Andrew just talked about, I mean we're not talking about double-digit growth that we need to get there. And so I talked about earlier about residential. And the statistics around 3 of the last 5 years and housing starts not even keeping up with household formations. And so if you think about where our footprint is, is where demographics are going to be. And so I think we see a path of improving demand environments, which we've said will be a tailwind to both our pricing and our cost. And so as we continue along this two-pronged approach and focusing on enhancing our core, that demand environment, it really plays well into the things we talked about today with Vulcan Way of Selling and and Vulcan Way of Operating. Mary Andrew, do you want to add anything?

No, I think you hit the demand.

Good.

So on demand, a little more narrow near-term focus. If you -- the guidance and the volume we expect to return to growth this year in '26, what would be the things that would put us more towards the higher end of that range? Like what has to happen? Is it a recovery in private construction is really the swing factor?

Yes. I mean again, I think we track a lot and we talk about all the data that we get in with our Vulcan Way of Selling. And I said on our last call that our -- going into '26, our bookings and backlogs were in really good position. And a lot of that's tied to both public and private nonres. A lot of that is the data centers we've talked about. So I think we've got really good insight into what that piece of the market looks like. I mean the unique thing about the data centers, typically, when we talk about quote to booking, it's about a 6-month lag. And so when we talk about public work and really typically private nonres work has been about a 6-month lag. What we've seen lately with some of these data centers is a lot faster conversion rate. So from time of quoting to time of shipping, we're seeing that 6 months shrink down to 2 or 3 months. And so you all are tracking the same stuff we are with all the data centers that are announced and all what that's coming with. I would tell you what we're starting to see is now the talk of where energy is going to have to be invested in to meet the demand of these data centers. And when we start talking about energy projects, you really start ramping up the aggregate intensity of those projects. And so I think that's a potential tailwind, Mark. I mean, look, residential, we don't have it in our the guidance we gave, we don't have -- we got residential going back to flat, maybe stopping the decline, but not really growth. Is there a potential there? I mean we all could guess on what interest rates are going to do and other things that are going to happen to address affordability. I think residential for us is more of a longer-term play. We need it. I mean the industry needs it. But again, we're focused on controlling what we can control. So I think with the public backdrop, private nonres, some of the other projects we've talked about, I think we're in a good position to start seeing demand recovery starting this year and then moving into the future.

Very good. So just to put a finer point and kind of wrap up the data center discussion, there's a couple of questions here about -- we showed a video that talked about the meta project in Montgomery, said we'd ship 600,000 tons. Is that kind of a way to think about data centers? Are they all shapes and sizes? How would you address that?

Yes. I mean I think it was a good illustration of what that footprint can look like. I mean it really does vary from geography to geography. And it really starts with where are they building it at and what was there to begin with. I mean some of these projects are literally a farm field with nothing. And so when they start those kind of projects, they're scraping the ground and they may go down a couple of feet to build a foundation for what they're going to construct on top of that. Obviously, in Virginia, that's a very mature -- I mean, if there's a mature definition of data centers, but Virginia is a very mature market. So when we see construction in Virginia, they're not the same as the construction in Monroe, Louisiana or in Huntsville, Alabama or in Abilene, Texas. And so it really is based on what is the -- what are they starting with? How much ground are they going to cover I mean some of these things have been gone now to Phase 5, Phase 6, Phase 7. But it's also what we're starting to see is energy tied to the data centers, which is creating another opportunity for aggregate intensity with some of those projects because when they have to start literally building 100% redundancy for these power plants or for these AI plants to get approved, that's going to be -- it's going to be another tailwind to our demand environment.

Okay. Maybe one more on the demand side.

I thought you said that was it.

No, that was a data center. So a couple of questions on renewal of the highway bill. So we talked about continued growth, maybe kind of set the table for volume growth continuing on the highway side of things and the prospects for getting a new highway bill.

Yes. I told a couple last night that we were talking about that. So I worry about a lot of things and, and our Board and our shareholders pay us to worry. That's what we get to do. Public is not something that I worry. It's at the middle to the bottom end of my worries. And I say that because, look, we've got a -- we've got a good tail to IIJA. So we're going to still be spending well into '27 and even into '28. And remember, 1/3 comes from the federal side, 1/3 comes from states and 1/3 comes from local measures. The states and the local measures are very healthy. And so we see that continuing on. And I would tell you, we've been in a lot of meetings with representatives on the transportation committees. I think both the Rs and the Ds are very supportive of getting a bill. Will it be before midterm? I don't know. Will it be before expiration? I don't know. I can't call that. But what I would tell you is no matter what that looks like, whether that's in the form of a continuing resolution that continues to spend at the same rates that we're spending at today. And so we've done that a lot. But what I said earlier in my presentation was what history will tell us is that the next bill will be higher than the previous one. And the conversations we've had with both Republicans and Democrats, those numbers are higher than the previous bill when it comes to highway and infrastructure spend. And so focus on that, what's going to be highways and what's going to be infrastructure. I think some of the other stuff may not make it through a bill, but some of the other stuff didn't include aggregates. So I really didn't care about that. But in the end, I think I got -- we have a lot of confidence in where we're at on reauthorization. And again, I think public is one that, that leg of our stool is going to continue to be very strong going into the future.

Very good. Maybe one for Mary Andrews to kick off. This is kind of moving to more on the price cost side. Just talk about the price cost assumptions that support the targets. We talked about cash gross profit per ton growth. Maybe just give everyone a little bit of color on that.

Yes. So you know well why we talk about cash gross profit per ton growth because fundamentally, what we take to the bottom line is what is most important. We've said we expect that to grow at high single to low double-digit rate in the targets. There are obviously a number of different price/cost combinations that would get you that kind of earnings growth. What I'd tell you is our assumption there is that if we think about historically, what we've been able to achieve from a real price growth standpoint and from a real cost increase standpoint, we believe that we'll be able to deliver more real price improvement and that our cost increases will be lower than our historical real cost increases. So obviously, both volume and inflation will have some bearing on what the top line number looks like and what those 2 key components look like -- but overall, what our targets imply is our ability to outperform history on both price and cost and to deliver that high single to low double-digit unit profitability improvement.

Very good. Maybe this is a good place to insert the oil question.

Oil, what's up?

So -- and I say that more from the way it might impact with prices of oil, recent rise in price of oils, talk about how it may impact on the cost side, but also the opportunity on the price side.

Yes. So obviously, we're paying attention to what oil is doing, and it's a very short history right now on what it's doing. So we're not panicking about that. 10% of our cost on the aggregate operations side really is what diesel represents. And then we obviously have asphalt operations in several key markets as well. We have different ways. We have an asphalt terminal in California. Jamie and his team are here. So we have ways of controlling the fluctuations in asphalt pricing on the asphalt side. But look, in the end, I mean, I'll take you back to 2022, we came out of COVID, and we had record inflation. And it came from all shapes. It was fuel, it was parts and supplies, it was labor. And what do we do? And we raised our price. And what are we going to do next time? We're going to raise our price. And so our ability to react to this -- and again, we got midyears that we're going to be announcing here soon, and we're going to evaluate that. Again, I still think it's really early in saying where is this going to settle out at. But if we haven't proven anything to you at all, I hope the one thing we've proven to you is that we can take care of cost increases. And we've been very diligent at that for a long time. I said 40 years of history that aggregate pricing has been accelerating. 40 years. So I don't know, Monday morning quarterback, hindsight's 2020, whatever you want to say, that's a pretty good track record. And so of all the things I worry about, I mean, if cost increases are something that's going to be a headwind for us, then we'll turn it into a tailwind.

I mean I think we always say, right, most fundamentally, 2 things create a good environment for aggregates pricing, visibility to demand and inflation. And so if what oil is doing now is something that causes inflation, like Ronnie says, to us, a near-term challenge on the cost side within the walls of our plants, but ultimately, a bigger opportunity and one that we can catch pretty quickly. I think it took us a quarter back in 2022.

So maybe along those lines and kind of tying it into VWO and VWS, kind of how do we think about the benefits of VWO and VWS and their impact on price and cost kind of what's going on with inflation?

It's definitely tools. And as Krzysztof and Jamie and Brent talked about it's tools that we have that give us more insight and more analytical ability to make better decisions. And what we do with that, and Krzysztof made the point, I mean, first, you got to have really good data. And I think our teams have done an excellent job of making sure that the data we have coming in, both on the commercial and operational side is really good data. And then it's up to us to make those decisions. But I would tell you, the analysts that we have in each market and the sales service centers and those controls, I mean, we're looking at all that. I mean we look at our costs, we look at that opportunity. We look at our inventories. I mean, we're analyzing so many different things and really trying to drive the profitability of every ton that we ship. And so I look at those tools as these are the times when the tools are going to pay great benefits because we're going to beat our competition on cost, and we're going to beat our competition on price. And beating our competition on price means we're going to sell it at a higher price which some people would say, well beat your competition means you cut no, we're going to sell it at a higher price and at less cost. And so that's the beauty of what we're doing with these tools. And I'd say we're not done. We're going to continue to invest. And I said technology is a big piece of where we're going in the future, but we're going to get smarter. And we got a lot of room. We're just rock crushers, remember.

So speaking of a lot of room, so we gave some color on some of those KPIs, yield, throughput, less overtime, those kinds of things, right, for that time period. Kind of where could you see those metrics going over the next few and how that impacts cost?

Yes. I mean the yield, the throughput actually making the products that we -- that are high-value products. So when we talk about the targets that we set targets on our products that we're making. And so each plant has a specific target on the sellable products. I mean, so if you're just running a plant and you're just going to run it wide open, in the end, you're going to make maybe 75%, 80% sellable products and you might make 10% or something over here. We have our plants defined that we know exactly what products we want to do and what do we have to do to maximize that plant to get the throughput of our most valuable products. And so that's the way it's set up. And so then we start talking about plant uptime. And when you talk about plant uptime is really our ability to predict and plan for maintenance events. And so I would tell you the better we are at predicting and planning what's going to happen to us in our plants, the less it's going to cost us. I mean, I think that goes for anything in our lives. If you plan for something, your hope is that I was able to control that because I planned for it versus react to something, and so our plant uptime is a big focus for all of our operators on what are we planning, how are we doing our preventative maintenance, where are we spending our capital? Mary Andrew just talked about capital. Her and I are like every day, we wake up and go, how do we spend our capital wisely? How does every dollar we spend, no matter if it's termed to maintenance CapEx or not replacement, how do we drive those dollars to say we're going to get a return on every dollar we spend. I want to do it better. And the beauty of this is with the analytical tools that we have and the data that we're getting, our operators are now like, hey, if I can just do this different, if I can replace this screen with this, if I can rebuild this hopper and make it this size, here's a pinch point. I mean we are literally driving efficiencies with our maintenance CapEx, which historically, that's not some -- in big industrial companies, they just -- they said it's like-for-like, to spend maintenance CapEx. We don't want to do that. We want to drive better efficiencies in every dollar we spend.

And I think one thing, too, that's important to remember is a lot of the -- we talked a lot today about the journey of VWO and VWS and the investments that we've made, particularly on the operating side when the demand environment has been going the other way, I think, gives us a huge tailwind as we actually have volume opportunities. That's when you really get the benefits of those efficiencies in the plant throughput, more tons through the plant quicker is great. But if we don't need more tons, right, we're holding the plants back. And so as we get more volume, I think that we have a great opportunity to continue to see benefits in our production cost. Brent showed today what 2025 looks like from a production cost standpoint, and there's a good runway ahead of us to continue to execute on that front.

So here's -- on PI, there's a question here about how you're thinking about the risk that peers or competitors could duplicate, right? We talked about this long journey and very difficult replicate competitive advantage. And then on the flip side of that, with AI and the data we're collecting, is there an opportunity to widen that gap from a competitive advantage standpoint? Just maybe talk about the future of that.

Yes. I mean I think during the fireside chat, what we were trying to come across with was the difficulty of not just installing the equipment, not just getting -- which has been a very long process. As Brent talked about, 125 plants and all kinds of different outdoor activities going on at those plants. And so trying to install equipment, trying to get them connected, trying to keep that stuff running. I mean it changes your maintenance practice. It changes what we do in the plants. I mean it changes our daily habits of when we're going out there and now you got to keep these sensors. You got to keep them clean. You got to do that stuff. So the investment side of it is one thing. But to me, it gets down to the culture. And so when we talk about our confidence in continuing to lead the industry and people are going to be -- you're going to hear from our peers about optimization. And you're going to hear about them talking about their way. They're going to use the word way because that's a popular thing to say. And I would tell you, again, I mean, look at our performance and look at -- I mean, just judge our numbers because our numbers are -- speak for themselves. I think we continue to do that. And when we talk about AI, I mean, the beauty of what Krzysztof and his team have allowed us to do is we look at these opportunities. And Krzysztof said, we've got to be very disciplined. We can't go chase 10 different things at once. But we'll spend a lot of time chasing and we'll spend very little time executing, and so we limit that down. And we have all kinds of industry folks coming to us today with the latest and greatest ideas. And we've probably seen the majority of them and some -- there'll be some new ones to come. I mean that's great. I'm excited about what those things are. But the beauty of what Krzysztof has done is like, okay, well, let's just go try this at one plant. Let's go test it. Let's put it in. Let's run it for a couple of months. Let's see if it works. And our ability to scale, we've got the ability to scale, but we don't want to do is go out and say, "Hey, let's bet the farm on some new technology. Let's go out and put it in 400 plants and then go. Oh, c***, it didn't work. So we're just not going to do that. We're going to be very disciplined. And again, lots of opportunities on the mobile side as well as the fixed plant side. But Mark, I would just tell you, I think the culture that we've built and what our teams have already been through and their willingness to change and think about the way they operate our plants gives us that leg up that when we bring something new -- well, quite frankly, they're bringing stuff new to us. I mean our operators are calling me and Krzysztof and saying, "Hey, what about this? What about this? Not great." And so I think we're going to continue to extend that lead. I mean I'm in a great position of confidence in our team.

Very good. One more quick one on that, and we'll switch to growth. So we've got in 75% of our production. Why not go to 100%? What's the...

Yes. That's what I saw. Why not go to 100%. I mean, look, I think you saw both sides of that. You saw less than 1% on the PI plants, 2.6% on the non-PI plants, total average of well less than 2%, about 1.1% on our variable production side. I mean if you think about that, 2.6% on non-PI plants, that would be best-in-class all by itself that would beat the majority of our peers in our industry. Without PI, we would have beat that. And so what's happening out there on a daily basis, and our division presidents are back there in the back of the room being as quiet as possible and wondering what we've committed them to next. Jeff has his head in his hand nervous. But what our division presidents have done is they control all the plants. So we don't look at our plants and go, okay, we're going to go host a meeting over here. It's a PI plant. We're going to change our language. We're going to go over here to this plant. It's a non-PI plant. Let's change -- we have the same language. Mitesh talked about one language, one common. And so what we're seeing is behaviors that our PI plants are driving because of data that we've captured and the way we operate those plants, we're beginning to operate non-PI plants in a very similar fashion. We have the same focus on labor. Labor scheduling, it doesn't require PI to schedule labor. So we have the same labor scheduling efforts at all of our plants. And so I look at it and I say, it's really hard to go out there and spend the amount of money we had to spend on the PI side for a 200,000-ton plant a year. But what I can do is change the behaviors of those people. And the plant operators are all speaking the same language. Our maintenance people all speak the same language. Our supervisors all speak the same language. And so I think you're going to see all kinds of degrees of good when you combine all those together. And look, when we acquire, we talked about it. The Wake operations that we acquired, we already put PI in. And so when we acquire plants, if they're of that size of nature, it's plug and play now. I mean we're in a good spot to continue to adapt to PI where it's needed.

Okay. Very good. Let's switch over to growth. We talked about targeted growth opportunities from an M&A standpoint. Maybe characterize what that looks like, smaller, medium, new geographies. What does the new geography look like? What makes it attractive, existing...

It's interesting. Jerry framed it up really well. One, we're going to be aggregate focused. And so I think we've proven that strategy through both the acquisitions that we've done, but also the optimizing the portfolio. I mean you saw what we did on the ready-mix assets. We decided that wasn't the best -- we weren't the best owner of those assets, we choose to sell them. And so you're going to continue to see -- overarching, you're going to see that. We're going to be very aggregate led. We're going to be very disciplined around that. Second, I want to go north, I want to go south and I want to go the West. And so outside of that, if there's another direction, let me know. But what's important to us is, and Jerry pointed this out, is we want to be in a position of leadership. You will not see us go to a market and enter a market and then 5 years from now, be #4 or #5 in a market and just sit there and operate. We cannot be in a position of influence from a #4 or #5 position. And so if you see us go to a new market, just know that there's probably going to be another one. And there's probably going to be just what we did in San Diego, just what we did in Northern California, just what we did in Tennessee, just what we did in Georgia. I mean that's the footprint. And so for us to remain disciplined in being aggregate-led, aggregate focused and picking those markets, we're going to have to expand outside of our outside of our everyday footprint. And I would tell you, you follow data centers, you see where data centers are going, follow public spending. Public spending has been healthy in a lot of the middle parts of the country, a lot of the Northwest. I mean there's opportunities there, but it's also our ability to go and be in the right position. And so that's going to be aggregate focus, the right markets and the right position within those markets.

Very good. Maybe one for Mary Andrews in terms of how we think about returns for acquisitions and how we think about returns on that capital spending that we reinvest in ourselves to get better. Maybe just kind of frame kind of how we think about those types of things and the benefits.

Yes. So I mean, I think the 2 projects I talked about earlier are a great example of operating and maintenance CapEx that the returns on those are far in excess of our cost of capital. And even the smaller investment in Tennessee, a $5 million project, there's close to $1 million of annual benefit right out of the gate, right? So accretive to our returns on invested capital to. And Ronnie mentioned something important earlier, which is one of the added benefits of Process Intelligence is the visibility that it's giving us into how to most optimally deploy capital in our plants, where the data is telling us what the opportunities are. So I think that's giving us even more confidence in what the returns are on some of the operating and maintenance capital projects -- and then from an acquisition standpoint, obviously, we're looking at each and every acquisition, as Ronnie said, being disciplined about why it makes sense for Vulcan, what are the unique synergies that Vulcan brings to the deal. We look at them on a 20-year DCF model. And I think if you look over time, we're showing that we've been able to continually improve our returns on invested capital. And my view is that maintaining this balanced, enhancing our core and expanding our reach strategy, I think you'll see us be able to continue to move our returns higher over time.

And maybe a follow-up to that. I guess we talked about cash generation resetting higher. Like does that change anything about the way you or we think about capital allocation.

Yes. Well, as I said earlier, I don't think it changes. Our capital allocation strategy is no different. But because the cash generation has reset higher, I think we have an opportunity to more consistently deploy capital to each of the priorities that we've long talked to you about, right? So historically, whereas share repurchases have been more episodic for us and dependent upon those growth opportunities, growth is still our #1 priority. But given the level of cash generation, I think that you'll see a more consistent opportunity to also return excess capital to shareholders.

All right. While you're on a roll, I'll give you another one. So there's a couple of questions here about timing on the target. So could you kind of talk about time versus tons and kind of how you think about that?

Yes. So in a compounding business like ours, profitability improvements, earnings growth, they're a function of a combination of tons and time, right? So we've laid out what our expectation is about demand growth kind of in the medium term. You know where we are today. You know the tons that we gave with the target. So -- so you can think about kind of what that horizon looks like. But what I would say, too, is if demand is better than we expect, great. We'll take every ton that we can get. And I could play you a scenario where we'd have an opportunity to get to the overall earnings before we got to the unit profitability number, right? Conversely, I could play you a scenario depending on what demand looks like, where -- and consistent with what you've seen before when demand was as muted as it has been, where we'll get to that unit profitability target on fewer tons. So I think we give you the targets with the tons because volume is an important part of it, but it is fundamentally in a compounding business, it's really the interplay and the combination of tons and time.

But in that target mark that we did set, and we had a lot of discussions. This wasn't -- $20 sounds like a nice round number and like, okay, you just pulled that out. We did not. I can assure you, we had a lot of conversations around this. But the framework we laid is a very conservative demand scenario. I mean we're not talking about we need double-digit growth in demand. And so it's very conservative. I think it's very factual based on where we think we are with residential, where we think we are with private nonres and where we think we're going to be with public. And so I think the numbers, like Mary Andrew said, we're going to miss. We're going to miss either the volume. We're going to miss time. We'll miss one or the other, but we have proven is no matter what that looks like, whether demand doesn't make it or the price is not as fast as what we said, we're going to get there. And everyone on our team is dedicated to that. And so, that alignment is critical on this. But I think it will be a combination of the both, like you said. And I think we've got really good forward-looking sight into an improved and not something on steroid, an improved demand environment.

That's a good place to wrap it up. The rest of these are, I think, around demand and some of the other things that we've talked about. So...

All right. Well, thank you all. Thank you all for your interest in Vulcan Materials. Look, I hope today, you've got a better understanding that we have the right strategy. We have the right focus. But most importantly, we have the right team, and that's going to be critical into our achieving these new targets that we set. So thank you for your interest in Vulcan Materials, and we look forward to seeing you whenever Mark tells us we got to do this again.

Thank you.