J. David Grumm was a Human man, the owner and captain of the civilian transport ship Captain Cook in the 2270s.
History[]
In 2252, he enrolled as a cadet in Starfleet Academy. He discovered that he had too much trouble with authority and, while he served as a Starfleet officer for a period of time, he eventually resigned his commission.
By 2273, he had become a businessman. He commanded the Captain Cook, a decommissioned Federation starship, which was used for ferrying people and small amounts of cargo, whatever was necessary to keep the ship running. He much preferred to be out in space rather than on Earth.
In 2273, he picked up Rear Admiral James T. Kirk, Apryl Burch, Titus Hay, and Giancarlo Rowland, who had hired him for clandestine transport to Neural. Grumm dropped them off quickly so as to avoid Klingon detection. When the landing party was unreachable three weeks later, Grumm kept his promise to alert Starfleet. He then engaged the Klingon bird-of-prey ChonnaQ in battle to protect Kirk, Krell and Victory's Governor Apella, who were aboard a Klingon freighter. The bird of prey would have destroyed Grumm's ship if not for a late rescue by the USS Potemkin. (TOS novel: Serpents in the Garden)