The western laboratory constituted only one of the Museum Branch programs launched or expanded under Assistant Director Ronald Lee's leadership. To help cope with its many tasks the branch welcomed Harry C. Parker in October 1956. An impaired heart had forced Parker to give up his career as an energetic and popular naturalist in a succession of western mountain parks. He brought to his new job of museum specialist a valuable professional background and a determination to do his full share. His appointment made it feasible to reactivate the annual Museum Methods Course, which he helped prepare for and instruct. Parker's cheerful and expert service continued until his death in August 1961 at the age of 55. Alan Kent, although not completely freed of his planning team duties for another year, filled the gap he left.

When LaFayette had transferred to San Francisco two years earlier, James Mulcahy agreed to return to the branch from his curatorial post at Independence National Historical Park. Reporting in April 1959, he became Assistant Chief Frank Buffmire's principal collaborator in managing the eastern laboratory. Mulcahy shouldered a double load when the branch suffered another grievous loss in November 1963. Buffmire, whose talents had undergirded the quality and efficiency that characterized park museum development for more than a decade, left work early on a Friday to visit his doctor. He had survived a serious heart attack and felt disturbing symptoms. He died two days later at the age of 56.

Changes in Service organization concurrent with these events affected the branch in other ways. At the end of 1959 Ronald Lee left the Washington Office to become regional director in Philadelphia. His decision to move reflected departmental management policies that called for bigger organizational units and fewer assistant directorships. In Philadelphia he continued to work supportively with the Museum Branch, some of whose largest and most complex projects lay within his region. Daniel Beard succeeded Lee as chief of the Division of Interpretation, serving from January 1960 until the Washington reorganization took full effect the next year. The Museum Branch found Beard knowledgeable and helpful toward its concerns.

In the fall of 1961 Jackson E. Price became assistant director for Conservation, Interpretation and Use. His responsibilities included operations, maintenance, ranger services, safety, and concessions management along with most of what had been the Division of Interpretation. The former Branch of History became the Division of History and Archeology, the Branch of Natural History became the Natural History Division, and the Museum Branch joined two new branches, Research and Interpretation, in a Division of Research and Interpretation. Because this division remained nominal only, without a chief, the Museum Branch continued to report to Assistant Director Price, who gave its needs close attention and consistent support. His expert grasp of legal problems proved especially helpful when the branch's contract practices came under attack.

The branch customarily contracted for a variety of goods and services, including exhibit cases, collection storage equipment, and to a lesser extent exhibit production. The latter included certain photographic, silk-screen, metal casting, and other processes requiring equipment it would not pay the laboratories to install. The laboratories also secured by contract particular expertise, in taxidermy and flower modeling for example, which they needed only occasionally. In addition, when staff preparators could not keep pace with building construction, the branch contracted with display firms to produce and even install some exhibits.

In 1950 a display company in Washington contracted to prepare exhibits for the Ocmulgee museum rotunda while the laboratory concentrated on the more complex ones for the main room. The experimental collaboration went quite smoothly, although the contractor displayed an unfamiliarity with the proper handling of museum specimens. The next contract venture involved a larger Chicago firm that built exhibits for the Blue Ridge Parkway's Craggy Gardens visitor center in 1957. Two of the panels proved unacceptable. Getting them corrected convinced the branch that exhibit contractors needed to be near enough to allow regular inspection of their work.