Robert,

Times are just numbers, so you can use the MIN function to return the
lowest, or earliest, time. E.g., =MIN(A1:C1).


--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com

"Robert" wrote in message
...
I'm a pretty novice Excel user and I'm using data extracted
from MIDAS Db. My goal is to calculate elapsed times,
using earliest start time. Various time points are
captured in columns A, B, C... sometimes A is earlier,
sometimes B, etc. I need a way to tell excel to take
whichever time is earlier and use that as the "start time."
I tried creating a new column called "start time" and
using a formula that extracts this data point from the
other columns but not having much success, can anyone help?