In 1982, he completed Harvard Business School's executive education program for Owner/President Management (OPM).

In 1962, he began working for the Houston Chronicle, where he was responsible for covering the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

After coming back to Texas, he founded Griffin Well Service, an oil company in El Campo.

[2] Griffin won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting (No Edition Time), as editor at the Independent and Enterprise, for directing its investigation of the fraud scandal involving Billie Sol Estes in 1962.

Together they had three daughters and a son: Gwendolyn Pryor, Amanda Ward, Marguerite Horne, and Gregory Griffin.