Genie, the Aerial Work Platforms segment of Terex Corporation, celebrates its 50th milestone anniversary this year.
Genie Industries was founded in 1966 when Bud Bushnell bought the manufacturing rights to a material lift that operated on compressed air. Customers seemed to be impressed with the “magic in the bottle” that used to raise and lower the hoist, which is where the Genie name was born. With growing demand for material lifts and aerial work platforms, products such as personnel lifts, telescopic booms, articulated booms, light towers, and telehandlers have been added to the Genie product line. Today, Genie equipment is used in a variety of industries and applications worldwide, including rental, aviation, construction, entertainment, government and military, industrial, as well as warehouse and retail.
“From the very beginning, Genie has been working to develop products that solve our customers' worksite challenges—and that process never ends,” says Brad Allen, vice president of Genie marketing, product management, and engineering. “Our team of product managers and engineers uses customers' inputs to design new products, featuring the latest technology to meet changing needs. We manufacture our products to stringent standards that help increase quality, lower costs and provide a high rental return on invested capital (rROIC).”
In the last 50 years, Genie has become known for developing innovative products that make work at height more productive, including:
- Push-Around Lifts: Genie pioneered the first hydraulic material lifts, featuring a unique interlocking mast design, which evolved to AWP push-around lifts.
- Articulating Boom Lifts: Genie introduced the articulating Z-boom in 1985 with the Z-30/20 model; a product that launched the company into the rental segment. These lifts gained popularity due to their unique “up-and-over” capabilities to navigate obstacles at height.
- Compact Telehandlers: Genie popularized the industry’s first compact telehandler, the Telelift 2306, in applications beyond its initial agricultural design, setting industry benchmarks for high productivity and performance, maneuverability and easy operation. The Telelift 2306 was the predecessor model to the Genie GTH-5519 model in North America and the GTH-2506 unit in Europe.
- 40-Ft Scissors: Genie offers the most full-drive height models in the industry, including the GS-4069 and GS-4047 models. These machines are designed for mid-height applications, which enabled the brand to enter a new class category globally.
- Genie SX-180 Boom Lift: Genie was the first to market with the world’s tallest, self-propelled boom. The brand’s highest reaching self-propelled boom was built to safely and quickly lift operators up 18 stories. Its compact design allows users to easily transport it to and from jobsites.
- X-Chassis: This expanding axle design revolutionized the mechanism for extending and retracting the axles on Genie booms to and from the stowed position.
- Active Oscillating Axles: This feature allows operators using Genie booms to safely maintain contact with the ground on uneven and undulating surfaces, enabling the unit to retain maximum power and torque.
Genie also set new standards in the industry for many products and technologies that have become widely adopted in the last 50 years, including dual parallelogram; rotating, fully articulating and extending jibs; true crab steering; and the TraX track drive system.
- The dual parallelogram lift linkage allows Genie Z-boom operators to vertically track walls by raising or lowering the secondary boom without needing to re-position the machine.
- The market’s first rotating jib was pioneered on the Genie Z-30/20 boom lift and is still used on several Genie products today.
- Fully articulating jibs were first introduced on early Genie S-60 telescopic boom models. Before the advent of this feature, jibs were only able to be articulated parallel with the main boom. With the fully articulating feature, operators are able to articulate the jib above the boom and get in, up and behind objects quickly and easy.
- True crab steering was first pioneered on the Genie S-125 telescopic boom to eliminate hydraulically or mechanically linking the left and right tires with only basic steering geometry. By independently driving each tire, operators can (thru the use of angle sensors) do basic steering geometry, steer all the tires the same angle one direction (crab steering) and do four-wheel steering.
- Genie was the first to bring the four-point TraX track drive system to the industry as a way to provide increased terrainability and lower contact pressure for reduced damage to sensitive ground surfaces on aerial products such as the company’s Z- and S-booms.
“From Bud Bushnell’s garage to the 4,500 team members serving customers around the world today, Genie is the story of teamwork," said Matt Fearon, president of Genie. "Our customers have trusted us and helped us to build and define the aerial industry, as well as creating ways for people to work at height safely. It is through teamwork that we will continue to find new solutions and opportunities to take our customers higher.”
