When a career fair turned into a $10,000 disappointment, Jonathan DeWys could have walked away chagrined about the lack of skilled workers. But instead, he channeled his frustration and the lessons learned into developing a better solution: a new, in-house educational program.

That planted the seed for what the company calls DeWys University.

For the past couple of years, West Michigan employers have been reporting a critical lack of job candidates with the right technical skills, a gap that has been growing as the area economy heats up from the prolonged recession in the manufacturing sector.

AMP is one of several employer-driven initiatives available in West Michigan aimed at recruiting people who want to work in manufacturing and providing them with the training and educational tools they may have not received in high school or college.