Wally Johnson, back in the year 1946, created the markets for both scaffold towers and aerial work platforms all by himself. He accomplished this by starting a business which was referred to as UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely gifted mechanical engineer who resided in Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access machines when he started looking for a a way to paint his house.
When Mr. Johnson was embarking on his home painting project, he had a fruitless search for scaffolding which can deal with the uneven ground which surrounded his home. After being very unsatisfied with his options, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower along with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also founded the same year in St. Joseph, Missouri. This small business helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The machinery was produced for rescue and firefighting work. In less than 2 decades, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
During the year 1977, Snorkel sold its first self-propelled lift. This particular product line did not take long to become the main business for the company.
Wallace Johnson rapidly catapulted to the top of the industry with his new scaffold. After he had accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and invent the very first self-propelled aerial lift in the world.
Mr. Johnson in 1972, opened a factory in Selma, where he produced the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this exciting and new machine exploded onto the marketplace, the innovative product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the main source of revenue of the company.
In the year 1980, Wallace Johnson passed away, while the company, UpRight Inc. was sold at that time too. Mr Johnson's pioneering and inventive spirit did continue to live on. In 1994, UpRight introduced the first micro-scissor within the globe. They went on to pioneer the TM12, which is the self-propelled mast lift.