Genie Celebrates "Building the Future" Legacy
Marking half a century of serving aerial markets around the world, Genie, the Aerial Work Platforms (AWP) segment of Terex Corporation, celebrates its milestone anniversary this year with customers worldwide. The company operates in 80 countries and on six continents to serve customers’ local markets.
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 — hence, the “Genie” name.
“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).”
Some of the company's product development achievements include:
- Push-around Lifts: Genie pioneered the first hydraulic material lifts, featuring a unique interlocking mast design, that evolved into AWP push-arounds.
- Z-Boom Lift Category: Genie introduced the articulating Z-boom in 1985.
- Compact Telehandlers: Genie popularized the industry’s first compact telehandler, the Telelift 2306, in applications beyond its initial agricultural design.
- 40-ft Scissors: Genie offers the most full-drive height models in the industry, designed for mid-height applications
- Genie SX-180 Boom Lift: Genie was the first to market with the world’s tallest, self-propelled boom, safely and quickly lifting operators up 18 stories.
- X-Chassis: This expanding axle design revolutionized the mechanism for extending and retracting the axles on Genie booms for outstanding stability with the flexibility for easy transport.
- Active Oscillating Axles: Help operators safely maintain contact with the ground on uneven and undulating surfaces.
Many Genie products and technologies 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 simply 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. This feature is still used on several Genie products today.
- Fully articulating jibs were first introduced on early Genie S-60 telescopic boom models..
- True crab steering was pioneered on the Genie S-125 telescopic boom. By independently driving each tire, operators can do basic steering geometry, steer all the tires the same angle one direction (crab steering) and do four-wheel steering.
- Genie brought the four-point TraX track drive system to the industry to provide increased terrainability and lower contact pressure.
According to Allen, "We’ve got brand-new ideas being thought of today that we’ll be turning into reality within the next two years. In the next 50 years, we’ll continue to reach new heights, fit into new classifications and categories and continue to increase our customers’ rROIC."
“From Bud Bushnell’s garage to the 4,500 team members serving customers around the world today, Genie is the story of teamwork. 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,” says Matt Fearon, President, Genie. “For us, 50 years is just the beginning — the best is yet to come.”
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