By the age of twelve, Miscavige was conducting Scientology auditing sessions. Saint Hill served as his own training ground as an auditor, and he is remembered by the organization as the "12-year-old prodigy" who became the youngest professional Scientology auditor. The family returned to Philadelphia within a few years, where Miscavige attended Marple Newtown High School. In 1976, on his sixteenth birthday, Miscavige left high school with his father's permission to move to Clearwater, Florida and joined the Sea Org, a Scientologist organization established in 1968 by founder L. Ron Hubbard. Some of his earliest jobs in the Sea Org included delivering telexes, groundskeeping, food service and taking photographs for Scientology brochures. Miscavige then joined an elite group of young Scientologists in the Sea Org called the Commodore's Messenger Organization (CMO), which Hubbard had established to carry out his personal errands and deliver executive directives to Scientology management, but as they grew into adolescence, their power and influence within the Sea Org increased. Early roles in Scientology By 1977, Miscavige was living in La Quinta, California and working directly under Hubbard as a cameraman for Scientology training films. Hubbard appointed Miscavige to the CMO, responsible for enforcing Hubbard's policies within the individual Scientology organizations; Miscavige became head of the CMO in 1979. By 1980, Hubbard was no longer appearing at public functions related to Scientology, and by some accounts Miscavige took effective control of the organization at this time. In 1981, Miscavige was placed in charge of the Watchdog Committee and the All Clear Unit, with the task of handling the various legal claims against Hubbard. He also became in charge of Author Services, Inc., an entity to manage Hubbard's literary and financial affairs, which was established in the same year. Sea Org succession By age of 19, Miscavige headed the Commodore's Messenger Organization, responsible for sending out teams to investigate problem areas within the Scientology organization. In 1987, the year after Hubbard's death, he became the Captain of the Sea Org, which gave him absolute authority over the Sea Org command structure and all Sea Org orgs. Operation Snow White After the Guardian's Office's (GO) criminal involvement in Operation Snow White, Miscavige persuaded Mary Sue Hubbard to resign from the GO and purged several top GO officials through ethics proceedings. The St. Petersburg Times, in a 1998 article "The Man Behind Scientology", says: "During two heated encounters, Miscavige persuaded