Thanks Viktor. Unfortunately, the dataBound event won't work for me. As I am using setOptions to manage user's grid settings, I had to set the autoBind property to false. Otherwise I was getting duplicate REST service calls. This was recommended by another Telerik Admin. See http://www.telerik.com/forums/how-to-prevent-grid-from-fetching-data-after-grid-setoptions . This is why I need to know when the grid is ready. Sometimes when I call setOptions the grid object is undefined.
What other way is there to consistently know that the grid has been created? I need a way around this. Right now I have users wondering why their grid settings aren't always being applied.