Back in the year 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 company that became UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely gifted mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access machines when he began searching for a solution to painting his house.
While Mr. Johnson was embarking on his house painting project, he had a fruitless search for scaffolding which could handle the uneven ground that surrounded his home. After being very unsatisfied with his options, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower along with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also founded the same year in St. Joseph, Missouri. This small business helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The equipment was produced for firefighting and rescue 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 the year 1977. This particular product line did not take long to become the company's main business.
It did not take long for Wallace Johnson to catapult to the top of the industry and achieve worldwide dominance with his scaffold. After he had accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and make the world's first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson during 1972, opened a factory in Selma, where he made the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this exciting and new equipment exploded onto the marketplace, the innovative product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the main source of income of the company.
In 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. During 1994, UpRight introduced the world's first micro-scissors. They went on to pioneer the TM12, that is the self-propelled mast lift.