Albert Lincoln Roker Jr. (born August 20, 1954) is an American weather presenter, journalist, television personality, and author. He is the current weather anchor on NBC's Today,  and occasionally co-hosts 3rd Hour Today. He has an inactive American Meteorological Society Television Seal #238. Roker was born in the borough of Queens, New York City, the son of Isabel, of Jamaican descent, and Albert Lincoln Roker Sr., a bus driver of Bahamian descent. He initially wanted to be a cartoonist. He was raised Catholic, his mother's faith, and graduated from Xavier High School in Manhattan. He attended the State University of New York at Oswego where he received a B.A. in communications in 1976. Roker worked as a weather anchor for CBS affiliate WHEN-TV (now WTVH) in Syracuse, New York from 1974 until 1976, while he was enrolled at SUNY Oswego. During his time in Oswego, he also DJ'd at the campus radio station, WNYO. Following the completion of his studies, Roker moved to Washington, D.C. and took a weathercasting position at independent station WTTG, then owned by Metromedia, remaining there for much of the next two years. Roker's career with NBC began in 1978 when he was hired at WKYC in Cleveland, then an NBC owned-and-operated station. After five years in Cleveland, Roker was promoted to the network's flagship outlet, WNBC-TV in his hometown. Roker returned to New York City in late 1983 as a weekend weathercaster, and within eight months became the station's regular weeknight weathercaster. Roker replaced 27-year WNBC-TV veteran Dr. Frank Field, who left the network over a contract dispute. From 1983 to 1996, Roker was the regular substitute for forecaster Joe Witte on the NBC News program NBC News at Sunrise, and from 1990 to 1995 filled in for Willard Scott, Bryant Gumbel and 1997 through 2000's for Matt Lauer on the Today Show. In 1995, he became the host of The Al Roker Show,  a weekend talk show on CNBC. Roker received wider exposure when David Letterman asked him to join in an elevator race on an episode of the talk show Late Night with David Letterman, which taped across the hall from the WNBC news studio in the GE Building. This led to Roker becoming the forecaster for Weekend Today. He also substituted on the weekday edition of Today when Willard Scott was ill or away.