Back in the year 1946, Wally Johnson began to create the markets for both the 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 skilled mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, California. He stumbled upon access machinery when he began looking for a solution to painting his house.
Mr. Johnson found it hard to look for capable scaffolding when he began a home painting project. Existing scaffolding could not deal with the uneven ground on his property. After being extremely unsatisfied 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 within St. Joseph, Missouri. This small company helped to transform the new elevating boom lift. The equipment was produced for firefighting and rescue work. In less than 2 decades, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
In the year 1977, Snorkel sold its very first self-propelled lift. 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 achieve global dominance with his scaffold. Once he had accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and make the world's very first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson in 1972, opened a factory within Selma, where he manufactured 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 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 too. Mr Johnson's inventive and pioneering spirit did continue to live on. During the year 1994, UpRight introduced the world's first micro-scissors. They went on to pioneer the self-propelled mast lift, the TM12.