PEARL HARBOR (NNS) - The chief of naval operations (CNO) visited Sailors in Hawaii and spoke at the 10th Annual Hawaii-Military Partnership Conference in Honolulu Jan. 5-7.

CNO Adm. Gary Roughead visited and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (MCPON) Rick D. West met with Sailors from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH), Navy Information Operations Command (NIOC) Hawaii and Marine Corps Base Hawaii, and fielded questions ranging from perform to serve (PTS) to current Navy operations.

"It is great to be back on the waterfront in Pearl Harbor," said Roughead, during an all hands call at Sharkey Theater on JBPHH. "I think it's no surprise to you that we as a Navy are very busy today."

At the conference, Roughead and West discussed a wide array of topics including manning levels, fleet readiness and troop deployments in regions like the Middle East, Western Pacific and Asia.

"We believe that there is a lot more to the world than the Middle East, and especially with those who have served out here, the Western Pacific and Asia remain extraordinarily important. Today we have about 15,000 Sailors serving on the ground there in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Roughead.

Roughead also mentioned the significance of the Information Dominance Corps, which consists of more than 44,000 active and Reserve officer, enlisted and civilian personnel Navywide.

"The world of cyberspace is going to continually open up, and that's why we reorganized ourselves in the Navy to create a directorate of information dominance where we brought our intelligence and command and control together. We created the U.S. 10th Fleet. We actually reactivated it from its World War II roots. That is our cyber fleet," said Roughead.

Recently, the U.S. Pacific Command director for intelligence presented the first group of Sailors from Navy Region Hawaii with the new information dominance warfare insignia Dec. 15, 2010. Those who were qualified to obtain a pin included information warfare officers, naval intelligence officers, meteorological and oceanography officers, information professional officers, space cadre officers and any enlisted rate that is assigned to an information dominance command.

During the three-day visit, Roughead and West also met with Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie and Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, at the conference to discuss the significance of Hawaii in the Navy's strategy.

For more news from Commander, Navy Region Hawaii, visit www.navy.mil/local/cnrh/.