Maybe: VLOOKUP with first occurrence of a value?

[SueWithQuestion]

I have data that looks like the dummy data I've pasted below.

The data in column A is sorted from high to low. The data in column B has lots of repeat values.

Can someone tell me a formula that would tell me, using the dummy data below, what is the value in column A, for the first occurrence of the value "brown" in column B? (In other words, the returned value should be 854.)

I'm guessing there's something fairly simple for this, but I can't seem to figure it out.

Can someone help me?

A B
1 Profit Person
2 985 smith
3 965 jones
4 854 brown
5 654 brown
6 425 brown
7 311 smith
8 301 brown

[NBVC]

=Index(A:A,Match("Brown",B:B,0))

you can replace "Brown" with a cell reference, if desired.

[SueWithQuestion]

Fantastic! Thank you VERY much.