Jim Esneault's eyes light up when he talks about the oversized photo that hangs on the wall of a conference room at Converteam's North American headquarters in RIDC Park in Blawnox.

The photo depicts a section of a steel-rolling line dense with gears, and evokes a mini-dissertation from Mr. Esneault on how, as the steel is flattened, it moves faster and grows hotter, and how the gears have to have more revolutions per minute, or rpms.

Gears and rpms and torque are the stuff of life at Converteam, which bills itself as "the power conversion company." It makes systems for converting electrical energy into mechanical power, and vice versa, as well as systems for operating conversion systems (yes, systems for systems).

The company's offerings center around what officials call "core components" -- rotating machines, such as motors and generators; drives to control the speed of motors; and process automation.

Mr. Esneault, who as senior development business manager, pitches products and services to potential customers, has good reason to be enthusiastic about steel: One of the largest contracts the company landed last year was to provide motors, drives and automation equipment for steel giant ThyssenKrupp's newest plant, now under construction near Mobile, Ala.

Mr. Esneault said Converteam, a privately held company, has not published its 2008 financial results but the $280 million deal helped the company achieve "double-digit growth" over its 2007 results.

And 2007 was quite a year: Orders grew 30 percent over the previous year, to $2.2 billion and revenues grew 80 percent to $1.35 billion.

The company grabbed a second major contract last year that will help feed its coffers for the next few years, this one from the U.S. Navy, which is building the first all-electric destroyer battleship, the Zumwalt DDG-1000. Converteam will provide the propulsion systems.

Although the largest contracts for 2008 were struck with industrial and military clients, Mr. Esneault believes the largest opportunities in coming years will come from the field of alternative energy.

"We see wind and renewables as being the biggest growth area," he said. While wind energy still generates only a miniscule fraction of the nation's electricity, the United States now has the largest installed base of wind turbines in the world, surpassing Germany.

Europe has historically been the heart of the wind power movement, with Germany, Spain and Denmark in the top ranks of deployment.

"We're transferring technology that was developed and engineered in those countries to our facilities, to support the movement of companies from Europe to the U.S.," Mr. Esneault said.

Germany alone has three major wind turbine manufacturers establishing a U.S. presence. Fuhrlander AG and Nordex AG are both building facilities here -- Fuhrlander in Butte, Mon., and Nordex in Jonesboro, Ark. A third manufacturer, Repower AG, has had a subsidiary in Portland, Ore., since 2007.

All of that is good news for Converteam, which makes electrical converters and generators for wind turbines, as well as systems for managing them. A key product is a direct drive that eliminates the need for a gearbox to turn wind power into electricity.

Engineers and technicians make up half of the company's worldwide workforce of 5,000, and while many firms both in the United States and abroad are announcing layoffs, Mr. Esneault said Converteam is still looking for new hires, both engineers and field service technicians.

The company has about 225 employees in the Pittsburgh area.

Converteam's roots go back to four companies birthed during the late 19th century: Westinghouse Drive Systems, formed in 1886; Germany's Allgemeine Elektrizitats Gesellschaft (AEG), formed in 1883; Britain's General Electric Co., formed in 1889; and the Compagnie Generate d'Electricite of France, formed in 1889.

In 1989, two mergers occurred: Westinghouse Drive Systems became part of AEG, and the British GEC combined with the French CGE to create Cegelec.

In 1995, Cegelec bought out AEG to become Cegelec Industrial Systems Group. After a name change to Alstom Power, the company sold off its power electronics and rotating equipment divisions in 2005 to a private investment group, Barclays Private Equity France, which renamed it Converteam in 2007.

Based in France, the company's ownership is now divided into thirds: Barclays and a second private investment firm, LBO France, each own one-third, and the final third is owned by employees, including managment.