Exhibit 99.1
Dear Fellow Shareholders,
As I reflect on fiscal 2021, it will clearly stand out as the most challenging of these past 15 years in which I have had the privilege to be President and CEO of Graham. The global slowdown created by the COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented. End markets ground to a halt, people around the world were unable to work, fear and uncertainty were everywhere and businesses’ near-term planning was turned upside down. Nevertheless, Graham’s values and operating principles served as our compass to navigate these difficulties. Moreover, we continued to focus on the areas of our business that we could influence with the belief that by controlling well what we could, Graham would be stronger on the other side of this once in a lifetime event.
A fundamental guiding value for Graham is maintaining a strong, vibrant and engaged workforce. To protect our employees, our most valuable asset, we shut down operations for a period of time in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Despite this, wages were maintained at 100%. I am extremely proud that we supported all employees with wage continuity even while operating at just 50% capacity. Shutting down operations also enabled employees to address the many, varied issues of personal life that were thrust upon us all when COVID-19 hit. We believe that our decision to protect our human capital and focus on the retention of our highly trained workforce will benefit customers and shareholders as end markets recover.
We operated at approximately 90% throughput during the third and fourth quarters of fiscal 2021. We focused on workplace protocols and safety processes intended to create a safe work environment, while at the same time we ensured the needs of our customers were continuing to be met.
Given the adverse environment, I am proud to report Graham delivered $97.5 million in revenue, up 8% over the prior fiscal year. Profitability was impacted due to the under-absorption of overhead costs given our proactive measures to protect the financial well-being of all our employees, but nonetheless improved over the prior fiscal year. Net income was $2.4 million, up $0.5 million or 27% from fiscal 2020.
Executing on our Defense Strategy
The underpinning strength of our Defense strategy is the industry itself. This market is less cyclical, uncorrelated to our traditional crude oil and chemical markets and measurably less volatile. The projects for this industry also provide longer term contract awards that enable greater visibility for revenue and demand potential. We initiated the strategy about 10 years ago, and it has progressed well since our first project win with a single component for the U.S. Navy nuclear propulsion program for aircraft carriers. Today, we are providing seven different components over three
| | |

| | Naval nuclear propulsion programs – two submarine programs along with the carrier program. In total, revenue to the Defense industry in fiscal 2021 grew 64% to $24 million and was 25% of consolidated revenue. Based on the timing of backlog conversion, we expect modest growth in organic defense revenue in fiscal 2022, which is then expected to reach more than $40 million by fiscal 2025. |