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The campus is home to 16,000 GM engineers, designers, and technicians and has been the center of the company's engineering effort since its inauguration in 1956. The "Tech Center" was designed by architect Eero Saarinen, with construction beginning in 1949. The campus was completed in 1955 and ceremonially opened by President Dwight D. Eisenhower via a live television link on May 16, 1956. The former President of GM, C. E. Wilson, who became the Secretary of Defense under Eisenhower joined GM dignitaries like GM President Harlow Curtice at the ceremony. Curtice drove up to the reviewing stand in a jet engine powered concept car the Firbird I. GM was on top of the world. The facility cost the company approximately US$100,000,000 at the time. The American Institute of Architects honored it in 1986 as the most outstanding architectural project of its era. The Tech Center includes 330 acres (1.3 km2) with 11 miles (18 km) of roads and 1.1 miles (1.8 km) of tunnels. It includes 25 main buildings and numerous additional structures including a water tower and 22-acre (89,000 m2) lake.