Wally Johnson, back in 1946, created the markets for both scaffold towers and aerial work platforms all by himself. He attained this by establishing a company which was called UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was a very skilled mechanical engineer who lived in Berkeley, California. He stumbled upon access machines when he started searching for a solution to painting his house.
Mr. Johnson found it hard to look for capable scaffolding when he began a house painting project. Existing scaffolding was not able to deal with the uneven terrain on his land. After being really discontented with his options, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower complete with adjustable legs.
During that same year, the Snorkel Company was established in St. Joseph, Missouri. The company was responsible for introducing an innovative new elevating boom lift to the market. The machinery was produced for rescue and firefighting 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 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 accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and make the world's very first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson during 1972, opened a factory in Selma, where he created 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 main source of income of the company.
During the year 1980, Wallace Johnson passed away, while the company, UpRight Inc. was sold at that time as well. Mr Johnson's pioneering and inventive spirit did continue to live on. In 1994, UpRight launched the first micro-scissor within the world. They went on to pioneer the TM12, that is the self-propelled mast lift.