Wally Johnson, back in 1946, created the markets for both scaffold towers and aerial work platforms all by himself. He did this by starting a company which became UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely gifted mechanical engineer who lived in Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access equipment when he started searching for a a way to paint his home.
Mr. Johnson found it hard to look for capable scaffolding when he began a home painting project. Current scaffolding could not deal with the uneven terrain on his property. After being really unsatisfied with his options, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower together with adjustable legs.
In that same year, the Snorkel Company was founded within St. Joseph, Missouri. The company was responsible for introducing an innovative new elevating boom lift to the market. The machine was made for firefighting and rescue work. In less than 20 years, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
The first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel during 1977. This particular product line did not take long to become the main business for the company.
It did not take long for Wallace Johnson to catapult to the top of the industry and attain worldwide domination with his scaffold. Once he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and make the world's first self-propelled aerial lift.
During 1972, Mr. Johnson opened a new factory within Selma. There he created the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this exciting and new machine 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 also. Mr Johnson's inventive and pioneering spirit did continue to live on. During the year 1994, UpRight introduced the very first micro-scissor in the globe. They went on to pioneer the TM12, which is the self-propelled mast lift.