[1] He graduated from the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, where he was Thomas W. Beasley's roommate.
[1] Crants was chief financial officer of a real estate company in Nashville, Tennessee.
[1] In 1983, he co-founded Corrections Corporation of America with his former roommate, Thomas W. Beasley, by then a leader in the Republican Party in Tennessee, and T. Don Hutto, creating a private prison management company.
[1] CCA received initial investments from Jack C. Massey, the founder of Hospital Corporation of America, Vanderbilt University, the Tennessee Valley Authority.
By 2016, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) along with Geo Group were running "more than 170 prisons and detention centres".