PAT KRESSIN
President and CEO of GRAEF
By Addison Lathers, Milwaukee Business Journal

For Pat Kressin, leadership begins the same way as design: by listening.

Kressin in January 2025 became president of engineering and design firm GRAEF, and in March 2026, he succeeded longtime leader John Kissinger as CEO. Before formally taking over the top job, Kressin spent months traveling to each of the firm's 10 offices across the nation, meeting every employee face to face.

He still makes a point of meeting every new hire, asking why they joined, what they want from their career and what matters to them outside the office.

"This is a relationship business," he said.

That people-first philosophy guides the leader of the Milwaukee-based firm, where Kressin has spent three decades building a career that began in landscape architecture and grew alongside some of the region's most recognizable projects.

His path to the corner office began far from the boardroom.

Raised in Cedarburg, Kressin started working at 12 on his uncle's potato farm, where hard work was less a choice than a family expectation. A year later, an aunt pointed Kressin toward a caddying job at what now is the River Club of Mequon. That move proved life-changing.

Caddying led to an Evans Scholarship and a full ride to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, opening doors to a professional network he still leans on today.

After college, Kressin intended to leave Wisconsin and join a large national design firm in places such as Denver or San Francisco. Instead, a connection through his father landed him in 1998 at GRAEF, where he planned to stay for a year or two.

Then came the projects.

Early in his career, Kressin worked on the Milwaukee Art Museum, including its Cudahy Gardens, followed by the Bayshore retail complex in Glendale and later the Drexel Town Square mixed-use development in Oak Creek.

GRAEF kept giving him opportunities to chase "really cool projects," Kressin said, and there was no reason to leave.

Now as the firm's top executive, Kressin is charting GRAEF's next chapter. His transition to the role came during a period that included the retirement of multiple principals, including some of the firm's most senior leaders. Rather than simply elevating obvious successors, Kressin said he made leadership roles competitive.

He also has emphasized transparency through initiatives such as "Chat with Pat" lunches, where employees are invited to share ideas and concerns directly with the CEO.

"I don't want to give the impression that we weren't transparent before, but that level of communication and transparency has really been noteworthy with Pat," said Brett Pitcher, GRAEF's chief operating officer. "We have open doors, and you can come over and meet with us, talk with us at any point in time."

As he leads GRAEF into its next phase, Kressin sees the industry at a turning point. The firm is investing in digital strategies, proprietary systems and artificial intelligence-driven tools as engineering and design services rapidly evolve. It's working to hire director-level roles that specialize in technical disciplines, from transportation to civil engineering.

Kressin's goal is to preserve GRAEF's legacy while pushing forward — more offices, more services, more jobs.
But he returns to the same core idea.

Whether designing a plaza, a splash pad or a company culture, Kressin said, it all comes back to creating spaces for people.

"When people bring their kids and they're pointing at buildings and places and showing them what they've worked on, it's really just inspiring," Kressin said. "The more we can do that, the more we'll continue to grow GRAEF and the more sustainable jobs and families we will create."

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Pat Kressin's Executive Profile was featured in Milwaukee Business Journal's July 10-16, 2026 print edition.