Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic (CNAL) hosted a Commander's Training Symposium on Naval Station Norfolk, March 6-7.

The purpose of the event was to update CNAL leadership on fleet-wide initiatives, current readiness and provide a venue where the group can share ideas and provide genuine feedback.

The training symposium's theme, "Current Readiness, Leading Every Day, Future Readiness," highlighted Rear Adm. Roy Kelley's vision, priorities and lines of effort as the CNAL commander while providing a roadmap for leadership at all levels.

"What a great opportunity to get Naval Aviation leadership together and share not only questions and concerns, but the future opportunities we have with the new National Defense Strategy and budget," said Kelley. "We now have clear direction to build naval capacity, capability, and readiness."

Participants also had the opportunity to engage in several roundtable discussions, where other topics such as leadership development, Navy manpower and manning, material readiness and major perspectives were discussed.

I really enjoyed the leadership discussion we had this morning," said Cmdr. Kelly Harrison, executive officer of HSC-26. "We don't always have a lot of time to talk about leadership development as a group so that was really nice. I also enjoyed the brief and Q & A with Rear Adm. Kelley. It's always nice to have an opportunity to ask more senior leaders for their perspective on the different issues we face and get their take as experienced members of the decision making process."

Commander Naval Air Force Atlantic is responsible for overseeing the manning, training, and equipping of six nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, 80 squadrons, more than 1,000 aircraft and 30,000 personnel on the east coast of the United States.

"Rear Adm. Kelley has already asked us for direct inputs on our top three things we would want him to know from our perspective," Harrison continued. "I think this is a great opportunity for him to get unfiltered information from the lower levels about our officer's concerns and clearly articulate the issues we wrestle with. His brief yesterday really steels me in my resolve that even though we may face some challenges at this moment; we still need to do everything in our power to help our commands maintain the standard across the board."