Topic: Al Roker

Albert Lincoln "Al" Roker, Jr. (born August 20, 1954) is an American television meteorologist as well as an actor and book author. He is best known as being the weather anchor on NBC's Today. On Monday, July 20, 2009, he began co-hosting his new morning show, Wake Up with Al, on The Weather Channel, which airs weekdays from 6am to 7am ET, one hour earlier than Today. He holds an expired American Meteorological Society Television Seal, #238. He is the author of a murder mystery, entitled The Morning Show Murders, about a celebrity chef and morning television show host drawn into international intrigue and mayhem.

Roker was born in Queens, NY, the son of Isabel, of Jamaican descent, and Albert Lincoln Roker, Sr., a labor relations negotiator, bus driver and dispatcher of Bahamian descent. Roker initially wanted to be a cartoonist. He was raised Catholic (in the faith of his mother) and graduated from Xavier High School in Manhattan. He worked on several projects as a member of the school's Cartooning & Illustration Club. He attended the State University of New York at Oswego where he double-majored in graphic design and broadcasting/journalism. Roker is a cousin of actress Roxie Roker, who is most notable for her role on the sitcom The Jeffersons and the mother of popular rock musician Lenny Kravitz.

Before the national recognition, Roker worked as a weather anchor for CBS affiliate WHEN-TV (now WTVH) in Syracuse, New York from 1974 until 1976, while he was still enrolled at SUNY Oswego. Following the completion of his collegiate 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.