Back during 1946, Wally Johnson started to create the markets for the aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He accomplished this by establishing a business that became UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was an extremely skilled mechanical engineer who lived in Berkeley, CA. He stumbled upon access machinery when he began looking 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 was not able to 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 in St. Joseph, Missouri. This small company helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The machinery was produced for firefighting and rescue work. In less than twenty years, 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 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. When he had accomplished this field, he decided to start all over and make the very first self-propelled aerial lift in the globe.
In 1972, Mr. Johnson opened a new factory within Selma. There he manufactured 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 income.
Wallace Johnson passed away during 1980. At that time, the company UpRight Inc. was sold but his pioneering and inventive spirit lived on. In 1994, UpRight introduced the very first micro-scissor within the globe. They went on to pioneer the self-propelled mast lift, the TM12.