With degrees in electrical engineering and mathematical statistics, Grubbs began his military career in the United States Army reserve in 1941. During the Second World War he served in the Ordnance Department and the Ballistics Research Laboratory (BRL). In 1944 he supervised the stockpiling of ammunition in England prior to the D-Day landings, dividing the ammunition into categories based on their ballistic characteristics. After the war, whilst continuing to work for BRL, he obtained his PhD (on the detection of outliers) at U Michigan in 1949. He is credited with initiating Box's career in the USA. In 1964 he was the first recipient of the Wilks Award of the ASA. In 1971 he was awarded the Shewhart Medal of the ASQ. He was the author of the interestingly entitled Statistical measures of accuracy for riflemen and missile engineers.