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 was referred to as UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely skilled mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, California. He stumbled upon access machinery when he began 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 can handle the uneven terrain which surrounded his home. After being very unsatisfied with his options, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower complete with adjustable legs.
During that same year, the Snorkel Company was founded in St. Joseph, Missouri. The company was responsible for introducing an innovative new elevating boom lift to the market. The equipment was produced for firefighting and rescue work. In less than 2 decades, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
In 1977, Snorkel sold its first self-propelled lift. This particular product line did not take long to become the company's main business.
Wallace Johnson rapidly catapulted to the top of the business with his new scaffold. After he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and invent the world's very first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson in the year 1972, opened a factory within Selma, where he produced the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this exciting and new machine exploded onto the marketplace, the innovative product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the main source of income of the company.
In the year 1980, Wallace Johnson passed away, while the company, UpRight Inc. was sold at that time too. Mr Johnson's pioneering and inventive spirit did continue to live on. In 1994, UpRight launched the world's first micro-scissors. They went on to pioneer the TM12, which is the self-propelled mast lift.