UNION GROVE - What's happening in Los Angeles lately is putting people to work here.

Ruud Lighting recently won a large share of a contract to supply 140,000 LED lights to the city of Los Angeles over five years.

The city approved replacing old streetlight lamps with LEDs and is buying many of them from BetaLED, a division of Ruud Lighting.

And that is throwing extra business to Accu-Turn, 1375 Industrial Drive. Accu-Turn has done machining work for Ruud for about 20 years and makes the housings for the LED lamps, said company majority owner George Seater.

Ruud's Los Angeles contract has his company busting at the seams. Seater is currently seeking city approval to extend its operations into a warehouse building at 1009 State St.

Seater said his Accu-Turn staff has risen from 12 to 22 people because of Ruud's L.A. contract. "We've almost doubled," he said.

He also has invested $180,000 to buy new computer numeric control machines and sawing equipment. Seater is leasing about 5,000 square feet in the State Street building to expand Accu-Turn's operations. He will have about six people working there, he said.

Just how much of the Los Angeles street lighting contract Ruud Lighting will wind up with is unknown so far. Ed Ebrahimian, director of the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting, recently said the bureau only bought 2,000 LEDs initially. It will follow that with 2,000 more.

"We will phase (the lighting conversion) because of LED technology changing so rapidly" and prices are declining, he said. "About every six months we'll look at what's available."

The phasing may stop at some point, Ebrahimian said, if the technology pattern has flattened.

However, he added, "So far Ruud has been great, and they have met or exceeded our expectations."

In all, the project is designed to touch 2,500 residential streets, Ebrahimian said.

"We're not promoting LED or any manufacturer - we're promoting energy efficiency," he said. Los Angeles pays $16 million a year for electricity for its streetlights, Ebrahimian said.

"(LED) is making a huge difference for us," he said.

And that's making a difference at Ruud Lighting and Accu-Turn.