Turning now to the numbers where consolidated net sales for the quarter were $279 million compared to $286 million last year.
Consolidated operating income for the quarter was $27.8 million compared to $32.3 million last year.
Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $41.2 million compared to $43.9 million last year.
That translates to a margin of 14.8% in Q1 this year compared to 15.3% last year.
Net income for the quarter was $22.2 million compared to $23.4 million last year.
That equates to GAAP earnings per share for the quarter of $0.36 per share compared to $0.38 per share last year.
On an adjusted basis, earnings per share for the quarter was $0.38 per share, compared to $0.39 per share last year.
Order intake for the quarter was outstanding with orders of $384 million represent -- representing our highest quarterly orders on record and an increase of $80 million or 26% compared to Q1 last year.
Consolidated backlog at the end of the quarter also set a new company record at $410 million that represents an increase of $9 million compared to Q1 last year and an increase of $106 million or 35% from the end of 2020.
In terms of our group results, ESG net sales for the quarter were $228 million compared to $233 million last year.
ESG's operating income for the quarter was $27.1 million compared to $29.4 million last year.
ESG's adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $39.3 million compared to $40 million in the prior year.
That translates to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.2% in line with last year.
EFC reported orders of $324 million in Q1 this year, an improvement of $87 million or 37% compared to last year.
SSG's net sales for the quarter were $51 million this year compared to $53 million last year.
Operating income for the quarter was $7.2 million dollars compared to $7.4 million last year.
SSG's adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was consistent with the prior year at around $8.2 million while its adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter improved to 16.2% of 80 basis points from Q1 last year.
SSG's orders for the quarter was $60 million compared to $66 million last year.
Corporate operating expenses for the quarter was $6.5 million, up from $4.5 million last year.
The increase was primarily due to an unfavorable year-over-year variance of $2.6 million associated with changes in mark-to-market adjustments of post-retirement reserves.
These market based adjustments benefited our earnings in Q1 last year by approximately $0.02 per share but were unfavorable in Q1 this year.
Turning now to the consolidated income statement where the decrease in sales contributed to a $6 million reduction in gross profit.
Consolidated gross margin for the quarter was 24.7% compared to 26.1% last year.
As a percentage of sales, our selling, engineering, general and administrative expenses for the quarter were down 20 basis points from Q1 last year, despite the unfavorable mark-to-market variance I just mentioned.
Other items affecting the quarterly results include a $700,000 increase in other income and a $400,000 decrease in interest expense.
Tax expense for the quarter was down $2.2 million dollars, largely due to lower pre-tax income levels and higher excess tax benefits from stock compensation activity.
Our effective tax rate for the quarter with 18.4% compared to 23.5% last year.
At this time, we continue to expect our full year effective tax rate to be approximately 24%.
On an overall GAAP basis, we therefore earned $0.36 per share in Q1 this year compared with $0.38 per share in Q1 last year.
On this basis, our adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.38 per share compared with $0.39 per share last year.
Looking now at cash flow where we generated $26 million of cash from operations during the quarter, an improvement of $21 million over Q1 last year.
We ended the quarter with $168 million of net debt and availability under our credit facility of $270 million.
Our current net debt leverage ratio remains low even after funding the acquisition of OSW during the quarter for approximately $53 million.
On that note, we paid dividends of $5.5 million during the quarter, reflecting an increased dividend of $0.09 per share.
In fact, in Illinois, where we have three of our largest facilities and the corporate office, over 60% of our employees are now fully vaccinated.
As in the last two quarters, we again saw improved demand for our products with our first-quarter order intake setting a new record for the company, surpassing the previous high by over $50 million.
Demand for sewer cleaners remains strong, with first quarter orders up 30% year-over-year, and almost double the amount recorded last quarter.
Over the last couple of years, approximately 70% of our sewer cleaners orders have included an optional safe-digging package, which allows our sewer cleaners to also be used for hydro or vacuum excavation purposes.
Our road marking services business, Highmark also won an $8 million striping contract during the quarter.
In addition, our dump bodies and trailer businesses reported strong organic order growth of 28% across our end markets, achieving record backlog.
As a reminder, that is about 50% of the time for our ESG businesses, excluding TBEI, where the customer almost always supplies the chassis.
We were recently notified by one of our chassis suppliers that they are temporarily suspending production of certain chassis for up to 90 days in light of the semiconductor shortage.
We were pleased to see that TRUVAC product demonstrations for the quarter were up 70% from last year.
We also continue to make progress with our aftermarket initiative with aftermarket revenues for the quarter improving by 6% and representing a higher share of ESG's revenues for the quarter at around 27%.
During the quarter, products launched over the last year equated to organic growth of about 4%.
In sourcing this line, which leverages automated laser technology, is estimated to improve the related margins and drive annual savings of over $1 million.
The acquisition provides considerable opportunity for long-term value creation through the application of our 80/20 improvement principle, organic growth initiatives and additional bolt-on acquisitions.
Last week, we held an initial 80/20 improvement training session at OSW, which was well received by the teams.
The American rescue plan, COVID release package, includes approximately 1.9 trillion of economic stimulus with approximately $350 billion going to state, local and territorial governments with the goal of keeping frontline workers employed, distributing the vaccine, increasing testing, reopening schools, and maintaining essential services.
We are actively educating our dealer channel about the stimulus program and have distributed the latest estimate allocation of the $350 billion of state and local government support by jurisdiction to our dealer channel to share with its customer base.
After factoring in the impact expected over the next couple of months, at this time, we are maintaining our adjusted earnings per share outlook for the year of $1.73 to $1.85.

Summary:
That equates to GAAP earnings per share for the quarter of $0.36 per share compared to $0.38 per share last year.
On an adjusted basis, earnings per share for the quarter was $0.38 per share, compared to $0.39 per share last year.
In terms of our group results, ESG net sales for the quarter were $228 million compared to $233 million last year.
On an overall GAAP basis, we therefore earned $0.36 per share in Q1 this year compared with $0.38 per share in Q1 last year.
On this basis, our adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.38 per share compared with $0.39 per share last year.
After factoring in the impact expected over the next couple of months, at this time, we are maintaining our adjusted earnings per share outlook for the year of $1.73 to $1.85.