The Georgia General Assembly amended EES' charter in the early 1960s, authorizing an "industrial extension service to meet the technical, informational and other needs of industry and local development groups". This led to an expansion of some of EES' activities that it had been involved in since the 1940s. In particular, EES began providing additional services as a technological incubator during this time frame, and began an international development initiative that improved infrastructure and facilitated technology transfer in over 40 developing nations. The station's expanded mission bolstered its traditional research strengths, resulting in work on projects that improved radar operation on the Saturn rocket and in the invention of the compact antenna range by Richard C. Johnson. Throughout the 1960s, these changes brought about an increased focus on research that sought to solve societal problems rather than research for the sake of pure scientific knowledge. This came at a time when director Maurice W. Long began placing an emphasis on graduate education and multidisciplinary research.