Back in the year 1946, Wally Johnson started to create the markets for both the aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He did this by starting a company that was referred to as UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely skilled mechanical engineer who lived in Berkeley, California. He stumbled upon access machines when he started looking for a a way to paint his house.
While Mr. Johnson was embarking on his house painting project, he had a futile search for scaffolding which can deal with the uneven ground which surrounded his house. After being very discontented with his options, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower complete with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also established the same year within St. Joseph, Missouri. This small company helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The machine was made for firefighting and rescue work. In less than 2 decades, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
The very first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel in 1977. This particular product line did not take long to become the company's main business.
It did not take long for Wallace Johnson to catapult to the top of the business and attain worldwide domination with his scaffold. When he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and invent the world's first self-propelled aerial lift.
During 1972, Mr. Johnson opened a new factory in Selma. There he made the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this exciting and new equipment exploded onto the marketplace, the innovative product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the company`s main source of income.
During the year 1980, Wallace Johnson passed away, while the company, UpRight Inc. was sold at that time too. Mr Johnson's inventive and pioneering spirit did continue to live on. During 1994, UpRight launched the very first micro-scissor in the globe. They went on to pioneer the TM12, which is the self-propelled mast lift.