Back in the year 1946, Wally Johnson started to create the markets for both the aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He accomplished this by starting a company that became UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely skilled mechanical engineer who lived in Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access machinery when he started searching for a a way to paint his house.
While Mr. Johnson was embarking on his home painting project, he had a futile search for scaffolding which could handle the uneven ground which surrounded his home. After being very unsatisfied with his choices, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower along with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also founded the same year in St. Joseph, Missouri. This small company helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The equipment was made for rescue and firefighting work. In less than twenty years, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
During the year 1977, Snorkel sold its very first self-propelled lift. This particular 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 industry and achieve worldwide dominance with his scaffold. After he had accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and invent the very first self-propelled aerial lift in the globe.
Mr. Johnson in the year 1972, opened a factory in 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.
In 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. During the year 1994, UpRight launched the world's first micro-scissors. They went on to pioneer the self-propelled mast lift, the TM12.