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(written from a Production point of view)

Bob Sordal (11 December 193222 February 2019; age 86), also miscredited as Bob Sorbel, served as a Key Grip on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and later as First Company Grip on Star Trek: The Next Generation from the start of the third season through "Realm Of Fear", the second episode of the sixth. He then moved on to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, while Steve Gausche replaced him on The Next Generation. After two seasons on Deep Space Nine, Sordal moved to Star Trek: Voyager and Gausche to Deep Space Nine. Sordal only worked on the first season of Voyager before retiring from the business.

A Captain Bob Sordal appears on the dedication plaque of the USS Brattain in the episode "Night Terrors" and on a list of Starbase 32 personnel in the episode "Violations", as well as Sordal-Palka Excavation in "Qpid", were named after him.

Before signing onto The Next Generation in 1989, Sordal had worked as a grip on feature films for almost three decades. One of his earliest films was Wild River (1960; with Frank Overton), a contribution noted in the Chattanooga Daily Times, 8 November 1959, pg 16. Over a decade and a half later, he worked on the film King Kong (1976; with René Auberjonois, Ed Lauter, and Garry Walberg). Sordal's subsequent credits include Who'll Stop the Rain (1978, starring Jonathan Banks, David Opatoshu, Gail Strickland, and Anthony Zerbe), The Competition (1980, featuring James B. Sikking), Body Heat (1981), Annie (1981), Young Doctors in Love (1982, starring Michael McKean and Saul Rubinek and featuring Ed Begley, Jr., Charlie Brill, Hamilton Camp, and Deborah Lacey), All of Me (1984, featuring Richard Libertini), The Man with One Red Show (1985, featuring Gerrit Graham, David L. Lander, and David Ogden Stiers), Midnight Run (1988), My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988, featuring Tony Jay and Suzie Plakson), and Ghostbusters II (1989, featuring Harris Yulin, Aaron Lustig, and Christopher Neame).

Star Trek credits[]

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