Wally Johnson, back in the year 1946, created the markets for both aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He accomplished this by establishing a company which was known as UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely gifted mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access machines when he began looking for a solution to painting his home.
When Mr. Johnson was embarking on his house painting project, he had a futile search for scaffolding that can handle the uneven ground that surrounded his home. After being extremely discontented with his options, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower complete with adjustable legs.
During that very same year, the Snorkel Company was established within St. Joseph, Missouri. The company was responsible for introducing an innovative new elevating boom lift to the market. The machine was produced for firefighting and rescue work. In less than twenty years, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
The first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel during the year 1977. This specialized 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 global dominance with his scaffold. When he had accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and invent the world's first self-propelled aerial lift.
In 1972, Mr. Johnson opened a new factory within Selma. There he manufactured the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this new and exciting machinery exploded onto the marketplace, the ground-breaking 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. During 1994, UpRight launched the world's very first micro-scissors. They went on to pioneer the TM12, which is the self-propelled mast lift.