Navy Rear Adm. Scott R. Van Buskirk, chief of staff and deputy for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, has been nominated for a third star and appointed as commander of the 7th Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan.

Also at Pearl Harbor, Rear Adm. Michael H. Mittelman, command surgeon at Joint Forces Command and medical adviser to Supreme Allied Commander Transformation at Norfolk, Va., will be the next fleet surgeon for U.S. Pacific Fleet and command surgeon for U.S. Pacific Command.

Van Buskirk, a 1979 U.S. Naval Academy graduate, assumed duties as deputy and chief of staff of the Pacific Fleet in July.

He has commanded the nuclear submarine USS Pasadena and Submarine Development Squadron 12.

Mittelman received his undergraduate degree from Jacksonville University in 1975. He was awarded his Doctor of Optometry degree from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry in May 1980 and earned a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1990.

Mittelman served as head of the optometry department at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Rota, Spain, from September 1984 to August 1987. Mittelman then transferred to the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, Pensacola, Fla., where he served as head of the optometry department and became the first optometrist designated as an aerospace optometrist in 1989.

In July 1997 Mittelman assumed command of the Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity, Yorktown, Va. In July 2000 Mittelman assumed command of U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa.