I finally figured it out.
'to get the column text from a page load etc.
intTotalWip = CInt(e.Item.Cells(grdDetail.MasterTableView.GetColumn("TotalWIP").OrderIndex).Text)
As I loop through:
For Each col As GridColumn In grdDetail.MasterTableView.AutoGeneratedColumns
if col.UniqueName = "columnname"
index = col.OrderIndex