No matter how many people we interviewed or spoke to, one name in particular seemed to come up every time we knocked on a door or recorded an interview: Ron Sorensen. We had no contact information for Ron, nothing at all to help us find him beyond his name. Our interview with Jon Blethen gave us a lead on Ron, pinpointing a last known location around the intersection of 8th and Donovan. After knocking on a few doors, we heard a few interesting leads:
“I heard Ron helped build the Co-Op building.”
“I heard he’s been kicked out of Cuba – TWICE.”
“I heard he’s got more money than Jeff Bezos.”
Of course, we had no way to sift through what was and wasn’t fact. Nonetheless, Ron’s story served as a backbone for our gathering. We followed up on every interview or potential lead, as each one represented a possible source from which we could find current contact information for this man. The interview with Albert Fields told us that Ron helped build the physical structure of the Co-Op. Supposedly, his expertise as an architect led him to a decent amount of money in his later years. But we had no further clues.
The next day, however, we interviewed Kevin Murphy. Somehow Kevin found the correct Ron Sorensen on Facebook and messaged him. Turns out Ron lives in the Philippines, on an island out of contact for any Skype or phone interviews. While we have no way to interview him, having his name recur throughout all of our interviews sparked some interesting and often lighthearted conversation with our interviewees. In a sense, Ron helped us maintain the conversational aspect of our framework throughout the interview process. We also used Ron as an opportunity to ask for other interview leads, so that we could expand our list of contacts rather than run out.