Wally Johnson, back in 1946, created the markets for both aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He attained this by starting a business that became UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was a very skilled mechanical engineer who lived in Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access machines when he began looking for a solution to painting his house.
When Mr. Johnson was embarking on his home painting project, he had a fruitless search for scaffolding which could handle the uneven ground which surrounded his home. After being very discontented with his choices, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower complete with adjustable legs.
During that very 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 rescue and firefighting work. In less than 2 decades, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
The first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel during 1977. This particular product line did not take long to become the main business for the company.
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 make the world's first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson in the year 1972, opened a factory in Selma, where he produced the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this new and exciting machine exploded onto the marketplace, the ground-breaking product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the company`s main source of revenue.
In the year 1980, Wallace Johnson passed away, while the company, UpRight Inc. was sold at that time also. Mr Johnson's inventive and pioneering spirit did continue to live on. In the year 1994, UpRight introduced the world's first micro-scissors. They went on to pioneer the self-propelled mast lift, the TM12.