Back during the year 1946, Wally Johnson began to create the markets for the scaffold towers and aerial work platforms all by himself. He accomplished this by starting a company that was known as UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely skilled mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access machinery when he started searching for a a way to paint his home.
While Mr. Johnson was embarking on his house painting project, he had a futile search for scaffolding that could handle the uneven ground that surrounded his house. After being extremely discontented with his options, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower together with adjustable legs.
During that same year, the Snorkel Company was founded 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 first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel in 1977. This particular product line did not take long to become the main business for the company.
Wallace Johnson quickly catapulted to the top of the business with his new scaffold. When he had accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and invent the world's very first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson in 1972, opened a factory in Selma, where he produced the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this new and exciting machine exploded onto the marketplace, the innovative product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the company`s main source of income.
Wallace Johnson passed away in the year 1980. At that time, the company UpRight Inc. was sold but his pioneering and inventive spirit lived on. In 1994, UpRight launched the world's first micro-scissors. They went on to pioneer the self-propelled mast lift, the TM12.