Back during the year 1946, Wally Johnson began to create the markets for both the aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He did this by starting a business that was known as UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely skilled mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, California. He stumbled upon access machinery when he began searching for a a way to paint his house.
Mr. Johnson found it hard to look for capable scaffolding when he started a house painting project. Existing scaffolding could not handle the uneven ground on his land. After being extremely discontented with his options, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower along with adjustable legs.
During that very same year, the Snorkel Company was established within St. Joseph, Missouri. The company was responsible for introducing an innovative new elevating boom lift to the market. The machinery was made 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 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 industry and achieve global dominance with his scaffold. Once he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and make the world's first self-propelled aerial lift.
In 1972, Mr. Johnson opened a new factory within Selma. There he manufactured the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this exciting and new machinery exploded onto the marketplace, the innovative product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the main source of income of the company.
Wallace Johnson passed away in 1980. At that time, the company UpRight Inc. was sold but his inventive and pioneering spirit lived on. During 1994, UpRight launched the first micro-scissor within the globe. They went on to pioneer the TM12, which is the self-propelled mast lift.