I'm trying to create a certain kind of line chart and am having much
difficulty doing so.

Basically I'm trying to show the time employees are working for a company.

I want the X access to have the years and Y access to be the name of each
employee. Each employee's line color will depend on their race.

So far I've had no luck in creating this exact chart based on the drawing
you can find he http://www.networkone-cns.com/helpimage.bmp

I've tried presenting the information in many different ways in excel in
hopes the axises will reflect correctly and that I can get straight,
horizontal lines.

Many thanks for your suggestions.