 In the 1930s she worked in Boston with a classmate from M.I.T., Archie Riskin, and registered as an architect in Massachusetts in 1943.Her registration in Oregon came ten years later, as a principal in the firm Polly Povey Thompson, Ray Kermit Thompson, Architects.From 1953–1993 the Thompsons collaborated on projects, with each preparing design solutions, and they critiqued each other's proposals to arrive at solutions.