Advanced sorting help

Good morning all,

I have a bit of a puzzle I am trying to solve. A thorough search of the internet and these forums have turned little to nothing of what I am looking for.

I have a spreadsheet that is roughly 10 columns by 600 rows, and I need to sort it in a fairly odd way.

I have a list of employees who have parts that need to be returned by a certain date. Some of these employees have more than one part, and they (usually) have different due dates, some weeks apart. I need to get parts that are due first shipped first. I also need employees with more than one part to only make one shipment.

While I can't post a screen shot of my spreadsheet, I will try to express what I have and what I need.



What I have:

Name Part name Part # Due Date
William Widget 6655 7/30/11
Aaron Widget 2222 8/06/11
George Widget 1111 7/11/11
Paul Widget 1234 7/11/11
Bill Widget 4321 7/12/11
Bob Widget 7890 7/13/11
George Widget 4567 8/06/11
William Widget 9999 7/11/11

Sorting by name, would of course, give me a list with everyone's name to only cut one order per person. However, there are names at the end of the alphabet that need an order before somone else. Sorting by date would move duplicate names way apart from one another (remember, 600-ish rows).

What I am trying to do is sort by date, but keep duplicate names together. Something like this:

Name Part name Part # Due Date
George Widget 1111 7/11/11
George Widget 4567 8/06/11
Paul Widget 1234 7/11/11
William Widget 9999 7/11/11
William Widget 6655 7/30/11
Bill Widget 4321 7/12/11
Bob Widget 7890 7/13/11
Aaron Widget 2222 8/06/11

Basically, I am trying to sort overall by ascending date, but if there is a duplicate name, I want those names to appear together.

Thanks!