Back in 1946, Wally Johnson began to create the markets for the aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He did this by establishing a company which was referred to as UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was a very gifted mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access machinery when he started looking for a solution to painting his house.
While Mr. Johnson was embarking on his home painting project, he had a futile search for scaffolding that can handle the uneven terrain that surrounded his home. After being extremely discontented with his choices, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower along with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also founded the very same year in St. Joseph, Missouri. This small business helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The machine was produced for firefighting and rescue work. In less than 2 decades, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
The first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel in the year 1977. This particular product line did not take long to become the company's main business.
Wallace Johnson rapidly catapulted to the top of the business with his new scaffold. When he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and create the world's very first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson during the year 1972, opened a factory in Selma, where he produced the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this new and exciting equipment exploded onto the marketplace, the innovative product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the company`s main source of income.
In 1980, Wallace Johnson passed away, while the company, UpRight Inc. was sold at that time as well. Mr Johnson's inventive and pioneering spirit did continue to live on. In 1994, UpRight introduced the very first micro-scissor within the world. They went on to pioneer the TM12, that is the self-propelled mast lift.