Back during 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 was called UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was a really gifted mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, Mesa. He stumbled upon access machinery when he began looking 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 that can deal with the uneven ground which surrounded his home. After being really discontented with his choices, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower complete with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also founded the very same year within St. Joseph, Missouri. This small company helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The machinery was produced for rescue and firefighting work. In less than twenty years, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
The very first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel during 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 industry with his new scaffold. Once he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and create the world's first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson in the year 1972, opened a factory in Selma, where he produced the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this new and exciting machinery exploded onto the marketplace, the ground-breaking product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the main source of revenue of the company.
During 1980, Wallace Johnson passed away, while the company, UpRight Inc. was sold at that time also. Mr Johnson's inventive and pioneering spirit did continue to live on. In 1994, UpRight launched the first micro-scissor in the world. They went on to pioneer the self-propelled mast lift, the TM12.