Highest 3 Year Average Over A Span Of Ten Years

I have a list of people with 10 years of salary history for each (in ten consecutive columns on the spreadsheet).

I need to calculate the HIGHEST 3 consecutive year average salary for each (if they have less than 3 years with salary, then it should just average the years the do have, be it 1 or 2 years).

Here is the kicker: some people have breaks in service (for these years, there is a blank in that entry). These years should be ignored and skipped in calculating the avergaes.

So if someone had salary figures in years 1, 2, and 4, but a blank in year three, the average of years 1, 2, and 4 would constitute one three year average (whether or not it is the highest is a whole other matter...).

I have been round-and-round the best way of doing this. I was thinking of maybe creating a UDF that calculates a three average, then do it up to 8 times (one for each starting year) in 8 "helper columns", and taking the highest average.