Harper Granville, Jr., was born on April 3, 1944, at the St. Agnes Naval Hospital in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Harper Granville (Sr.) and Nellie Thompson (Simmons). Granville was raised in Charleston, WV, and earned a B.S. in Economics from West Virginia University, in Morgantown, WV. Gran and Jeanne Sue (Arbogast) were married in Morgantown on August 27, 1966. They have two children, Geoffrey Granville and Sarah Malinda (Harris) and one grandson, Andrew. After serving in the US Navy and working around Washington, DC, Gran began working at the West Virginia Network for Educational Telecomputing (WVNET) in Morgantown, West Virginia, on August 18, 1979. He took advantage of an early retirement option and retired July 31, 2002, to pursue other interests.