The National Weather Center building, a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Oklahoma, was completed in 2006. One of the largest facilities of its kind in the world, it provides 244,000 square feet of state-of-the-art space for education, training operations, and research. It contains five major floors for offices, classrooms, laboratories, forecast centers, and instrument shops, along with a rooftop outdoor classroom, an enclosed weather observatory, and a telecommunications mast. The center is home to over 550 students, faculty members, research scientists, operational meteorologists and climatologists, engineers, and technicians. Its construction capped a half-century of close cooperative operations and research between the University of Oklahoma and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a collaboration that produced major developments in weather monitoring and prediction, including the WSR-88D Doppler Weather Surveillance Radar, known as NEXRAD, for observing regional weather conditions and the demonstration Phased Array Radar for rapid imaging of storm systems. Planning for the center began in 1993 under John Snow, Dean of Geosciences, and Jeff Kimpel, OU Provost. After David Boren became President of the University of Oklahoma in late 1994, he endorsed the concept, and in 1998 the University and NOAA agreed to partner in construction at the site he had selected. In the fall of 1998, Boren launched an effort to raise more than $67 million in federal, state, and University funds. The first $3 million came after President Bill Clinton visited Oklahoma in the aftermath of devastating tornados in May 1999 and endorsed the project following meetings with Boren and Governor Frank Keating. Keating and State Senator Cal Hobson led a bipartisan effort for state funding, while the federal effort was led by the state's senior U.S. Senator, Don Nickles, with notable help from U.S. Senator James Inhofe and U.S. Representatives J.C. Watts and Ernest Istook. Ground was broken in October 2002, construction began in earnest in 2003, and the facility was completed and occupied in 2006.