Nourot graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from California College of Arts & Crafts in June 1971. His teachers there were Ruth Tamura and Marvin Lipofsky. At the time the school’s glass studio was off campus. CCAC now has one of the best teaching facilities for hot and cold glass working. After graduation Micheal Nourot worked at the famed Venini Factory on the island of Murano near Venice. There he was on a team which included Checho Ongaro who later went on to acclaim as a symposium leader in America at Philchuck and elsewhere. The glass works which Mr. Nourot founded upon his return to the States in March 1973 was based largely upon the techniques used in Italy.

Later that year, Ann Corcoran joined the studio. Ann Corcoran was new to California when she began glass studies at CCAC. Ms Corcoran had attended the Rochester Institute of technology’s School for American Crafts from 1970—72. There she received an A.A.S. degree in Weaving and Textile Design. At CCAC Ann studied under Marvin Lipofsky and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in August 1974. In the winter of 1973-74 Ann Corcoran began working with Micheal Nourot in the San Francisco studio.

During the summer of 1974 the pair decided that the studio in the rear of the gallery owned by Mr. Eric Sinizer was proving too restrictive to allow further experiments in colored glass. Furnaces there were limited to ones which simply melted "cullet" or previously used glass. In Benicia, a small California town on the periphery of the metropolitan Bay Area, Mr. Nourot secured a large industrial space to build a larger glass works.

Benicia became the new home of the Nourot Studio in August 1974. In November of that year the partners were married. From 1974—1987 the studio was in a formative phase. The craft shops and galleries in nearby Northern California were the primary outlets for the works produced by the trio. In 1987 an important commission provided a great deal of publicity and spurred growth. Pope John Paul II’s commission for 1,200 “ciboria” for the Mass at Candlestick Park in December 1987 came at a time when the studio wanted to move to a larger building. The move was just across H Street in Benicia, but the 1954 vintage Yuba Research and Development Building was a move into the next century for the glass works which previously was housed in a metal sided warehouse. In the new space at 675 East H Street, together with Smyers Glass, a sparkling new gallery space was built in addition to new furnaces and blow room.

Each and every piece of Nourot Glass is always made by one of the two partners, no molds are ever used. The signature on every piece of studio glass is the same now as it was in 1974: two letter code for the series, piece number, year and artist’s initials.