He subsequently took a job as a drafter with the
Chicago and North Western Transportation Company (C&NWRR) from 1900 to 1903, then worked with architect
George Fuller on a C&NWRR office building for two years. He returned to school and earned an architectural degree at
MIT in 1907. After a brief stint in Chicago, Naramore moved to
Portland, Oregon, where he worked for Northwest Bridgeworks from 1909 to 1912 as a cost estimator. Many of the other schools in Portland built at the time were designed by
George Jones. In 1919 Naramore was hired by the
Seattle School District as the district's architect. Naramore became a prolific designer of schools contemporaneously with a new state compulsory attendance law and a decision to add junior high schools to the system which created tremendous demand for new buildings. He was responsible for the design of over thirty schools for the district. He also undertook school projects outside Seattle and consulted on school projects in other districts. After 1931, Naramore practiced on his own designing institutional buildings; for example, he was a co-designer with Grainger & Thomas, and
Bebb &
Gould on Bagley Hall (1935–36) at the
University of Washington. In 1939 Naramore took his long-time Associate
Clifton Brady into partnership forming Naramore & Brady. During the
Second World War the firm participated in a variety of joint ventures to carry out design of defense projects. In 1943, Naramore & Brady joined with
William J. Bain and
Perry Johanson to form Naramore, Bain, Brady and Johanson (nicknamed "the Combine"). The success of this collaboration led the partners to continue it after 1945. Naramore remained senior partner until his death in 1970. Today the successor firm is known as
NBBJ. Naramore was named a
Fellow of the
American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1935, and served as president of the Washington State Chapter of the AIA (predecessor of today's AIA Seattle chapter) from 1939 to 1940. == Legacy ==