[6] Grant conceived and led the establishment of the Public Sector Mapping Agencies (PSMA) and was the founder and inaugural Chair.
The impact on the way the government and private sectors, and the wider community operate, cannot be overestimated – from the use of national address files to bringing land parcel boundaries and land ownership to the person in the street, to assisting in real estate management to planning systems, to the way society uses the Internet to purchase goods on line through auto recognition of street addresses.
Grant's leadership was at a time of tension between the Commonwealth and State/territory mapping agencies and followed a well-publicized period of tension within the Commonwealth between the former Australian Survey Office (ASO), Division of National Mapping (Natmap) and the Royal Australian Survey Corps (RASvy) during 1986–88.
[7][8] Grant was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in January 2020 for "distinguished service to surveying, particularly through the establishment of a combined public sector mapping agency"[9] He was previously appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in June 1994 in recognition of service to surveying.
In 1997, Charles Sturt University conferred on Grant the degree of Doctor of Applied Science (honoris causa) for his contribution to Australian and international surveying, mapping and spatial information.