  We consider the excursions, i.e. the intervals between consecutive zeros, of
stochastic processes that arise in a variety of nonequilibrium systems and
study the temporal growth of the longest one l_{\max}(t) up to time t. For
smooth processes, we find a universal linear growth < l_{\max}(t) > \simeq
Q_{\infty} t with a model dependent amplitude Q_\infty. In contrast, for
non-smooth processes with a persistence exponent \theta, we show that <
l_{\max}(t) > has a linear growth if \theta < \theta_c while < l_{\max}(t) >
\sim t^{1-\psi} if \theta > \theta_c. The amplitude Q_{\infty} and the exponent
\psi are novel quantities associated to nonequilibrium dynamics. These
behaviors are obtained by exact analytical calculations for renewal and
multiplicative processes and numerical simulations for other systems such as
the coarsening dynamics in Ising model as well as the diffusion equation with
random initial conditions.
