Back in 1946, Wally Johnson began to create the markets for the scaffold towers and aerial work platforms all by himself. He did this by starting a business that was known as UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was a very gifted mechanical engineer who lived in Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access machines when he started looking for a solution to painting his house.
Mr. Johnson found it hard to look for capable scaffolding when he started a home painting project. Existing scaffolding could not handle the uneven ground on his land. After being very discontented with his options, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower together with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also established the very same year within St. Joseph, Missouri. This small company helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The machine was produced for rescue and firefighting work. In less than twenty years, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
During 1977, Snorkel sold its very first self-propelled lift. This specialized 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 industry and attain global dominance with his scaffold. After he had accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and invent the world's first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson during the year 1972, opened a factory within Selma, where he produced the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this new and exciting equipment exploded onto the marketplace, the ground-breaking product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the company`s main source of revenue.
Wallace Johnson passed away in the year 1980. At that time, the company UpRight Inc. was sold but his inventive and pioneering spirit lived on. During 1994, UpRight introduced the first micro-scissor within the world. They went on to pioneer the TM12, which is the self-propelled mast lift.