Dr. Jim Grant has coached Varsity Sailing at Culver since the Fall of 2010. He started his career as a Professor of Political Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College. Eventually he ventured into business. He started Sailrite Enterprises, Ocean Advertising and Publishing, and Computer Management Systems. All three companies remain in existence to this day though Dr. Grant has been retired for the last six years.

A sailor all his life, Dr. Grant has restored very old wooden boats (one a 32 foot One Design while in graduate school at the University of Chicago), built fiberglass boats from molds that he created himself (10 foot outboard racing "shells"), and raced competitively many sailboats over the years including, among others, a Cal 20 (sailed to 2nd place in the 1979 Nationals), a Lindenberg 22, an S2 7.9, a Highlander (sailed to 10th place in the 1999 Nationals), a Flying Scot (crewing with grandson Zach to a 2nd place in the Youth Nationals in 2010), a C Scow, a Lightning and an MC Scow (the boat currently most used). He has always made his own sails and, indeed, making this practice more easily available for others led to the creation of Sailrite, now a remarkably successful canvas and sail and sewing machine resource with customers all over the world. The author of many articles in sailing magazines and the "Sailmaker's Library" published by Ocean, Dr. Grant is best known for "The Complete Canvas Worker's Guide" in its third printing published by International Marine.