Wally Johnson, back during 1946, created the markets for both aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He did this by establishing a business that became UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was a very skilled mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access equipment when he started looking for a solution to painting his house.
While Mr. Johnson was embarking on his home painting project, he had a futile search for scaffolding that could handle the uneven terrain that surrounded his home. After being extremely discontented with his options, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower together with adjustable legs.
During that very same year, the Snorkel Company was established in St. Joseph, Missouri. The company was responsible for introducing an innovative new elevating boom lift to the market. The machine was made for firefighting and rescue 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.
It did not take long for Wallace Johnson to catapult to the top of the business and achieve worldwide domination with his scaffold. Once he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and invent the very first self-propelled aerial lift in the globe.
In the year 1972, Mr. Johnson opened a new factory in Selma. There 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 company`s main source of revenue.
During 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. In 1994, UpRight introduced the very first micro-scissor in the world. They went on to pioneer the TM12, that is the self-propelled mast lift.