Back during the year 1946, Wally Johnson started to create the markets for both the aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He attained this by establishing a business which became UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely gifted mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, California. He stumbled upon access machinery when he started 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. Current scaffolding could not deal with the uneven ground on his land. After being very discontented with his options, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower along with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also established the same year within St. Joseph, Missouri. This small business helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The equipment was made for rescue and firefighting work. In less than 20 years, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
The first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel during 1977. 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 achieve worldwide dominance with his scaffold. Once he had accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and invent the world's first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson in 1972, opened a factory within Selma, where he made the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this exciting and new 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 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 in the world. They went on to pioneer the self-propelled mast lift, the TM12.