Larry Kressley was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania on August 2, 1949. He attended Goddard College and Antioch College. Kressley was one of the first Volunteers in Service to America (today known as Americorps VISTA) in Arkansas in 1968. He later became a program director at Rural America. In 1982, Kressley began his employment with Public Welfare, first as a program officer, then senior program officer, interim executive director, and then director of the foundation in 1992.

Known for both for his critical eye and his respect for the grassroots organizations Public Welfare supported, Kressley cut needless bureaucracy when he became executive director and placed the focus of the organization on the communities it helped to improve. Symbolic of this commitment was the purchase and renovation of the True Reformer Building on U Street in Washington, D.C. as the new home for the foundation. The first building designed, financed, built, and owned by African Americans, the True Reformer Building was created by the self-help group the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers in 1903. Public Welfare worked closely with community partners to improve, but not to change the neighborhood, and offered its auditorium and meeting rooms to community groups. Several nonprofit organizations operated from the building rent free. Kressley sought to have additional land owned by Public Welfare to serve as the home of affordable housing, but the city denied the zoning request.

Kressley retired in 2006, having announced his retirement a year earlier to facilitate the search for his replacement. Deborah Leff succeeded him with the new title of president.