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 company which became UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was a really skilled mechanical engineer who resided in Berkeley, California. He stumbled upon access equipment when he started searching for a solution to painting his home.
While Mr. Johnson was embarking on his house painting project, he had a fruitless search for scaffolding which could deal with the uneven terrain which surrounded his home. After being very discontented with his options, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower complete with adjustable legs.
In that very same year, the Snorkel Company was established in St. Joseph, Missouri. The company was responsible for introducing a revolutionary new elevating boom lift to the market. The machinery was made for rescue and firefighting work. In less than 20 years, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
In 1977, Snorkel sold its 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 business and achieve worldwide domination with his scaffold. Once he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and invent the world's very first self-propelled aerial lift.
During the year 1972, Mr. Johnson opened a new factory in Selma. There he created the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this exciting and new machine exploded onto the marketplace, the ground-breaking product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the main source of revenue of the company.
Wallace Johnson passed away during 1980. At that time, the company UpRight Inc. was sold but his pioneering and inventive spirit lived on. During 1994, UpRight introduced the very first micro-scissor within the world. They went on to pioneer the TM12, that is the self-propelled mast lift.