Originally posted by fems
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Basically, the test for this is as follows:
You are using the clause "such as himself" to further illustrate "authorized personnel". Therefore, you could remove "such as himself" from the sentence without changing the sentence's meaning. Doing so would automatically make "were" the correct term, since it isn't proper English (Brit or American) to say "authorized personnel was". Because the presence or absence of the modifying/illustrative clause doesn't change the meaning of the sentence, "were" is also correct even when that clause is included.
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