Wally Johnson, back during the year 1946, created the markets for both scaffold towers and aerial work platforms all by himself. He attained 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 machines when he started looking for a a way to paint his house.
Mr. Johnson found it hard to look for capable scaffolding when he began a house painting project. Current scaffolding was not able to handle the uneven ground on his property. After being extremely unsatisfied with his choices, he decided to design his own aluminum scaffold tower together with adjustable legs.
During that very same year, the Snorkel Company was established within St. Joseph, Missouri. The company was responsible for introducing an innovative new elevating boom lift to the market. The machine was made for rescue and firefighting work. In less than twenty years, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
In 1977, Snorkel sold its very first self-propelled lift. 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 attain global domination with his scaffold. When he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and create the world's very 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 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.
Wallace Johnson passed away in 1980. At that time, the company UpRight Inc. was sold but his inventive and pioneering spirit lived on. During the year 1994, UpRight introduced the world's first micro-scissors. They went on to pioneer the self-propelled mast lift, the TM12.