• This 1994 photo captures the subjects of three of John’s books: from left, former US Senators Danny Brewster and Joe Tydings, and (fourth) former Maryland Governor Harry Hughes. Between Tydings and Hughes is Brewster’s son, Gerry, and to Hughes’s other side is former Baltimore Mayor Tommy D’Alesandro III, brother of Speaker Nancy Pelosi

  • John and the late US Senator Joe Tydings at John and Priscilla’s dining room table going over final edits of the 2018 book they wrote together

  • John and his wife, Priscilla

  • John at a book signing at the Green Spring Valley Hunt Club for his book, Self-Destruction: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Daniel B. Brewster

  • John with Danny Brewster’s daughter, Danielle, and son, Gerry

  • John at a recent book signing in Baltimore County

  • John with Speaker Nancy Pelosi following his interview with her in the U.S. Capitol

Biography

You could say that John W. Frece has had three different but related careers. For a quarter century, he was a news reporter for the weekly Reston Times in Northern Virginia, United Press International in Richmond, Va., and Annapolis, Md., and for 11 years the State House Bureau Chief for the Baltimore Sun in Annapolis.

Frece is a former reporter and Maryland State House Bureau Chief for the Baltimore Sun (1984-1995) and United Press International (1978-1984). He also covered the Virginia General Assembly in Richmond for UPI and was an editor, reporter and photographer for the Reston Times, a weekly newspaper in Fairfax County, Va. He later worked on the staff of the Governor of Maryland, at a University of Maryland academic research center, and as director of the smart growth office within the US Environmental Protection Agency during the first five years of the Obama administration.

His second career involved posts in the state and federal government. For seven years, he was on the staff of Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening, first serving as Communications Director and later as the Governor’s spokesman, speechwriter, and chief marketer for his Smart Growth land use initiative.

After Glendening left office, Frece became Associate Director of the National Center for Smart Growth Researach and Education at the University of Maryland. There he served as Associate Director and worked on projects designed to raise the Center’s profile with political leaders and the public. From there, he moved to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, where he ran the Smart Growth program at EPA during the first five years of the Obama Administration. A major focus of that work was coordination with the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Developement and other agencies who often worked on the same projects, but in the past had not combined their efforts.

Toward the end of his government part of his career, Frece began his third career as an author. His first opportunity came when former Maryland Governor Harry R. Hughes asked him to ghost-write his autobiography. As a reporter, Frece had covered — and grown to like — Hughes, who won the governorship in 1978 in an upset election and went on to serve two productive terms in office. With help from the Maryland State Archives, the book was publihed in 2006.

While at the Smart Growth Center at the University of Maryland, Frece wrote an insider’s account of the political machinations that surrounded and nearly derailed the passage of Glendening’s controversial Smart Growth iniatitive. The work was published in 2008.

After retirement from the EPA in 2014, Frece was approached by former U.S. Senator Joseph D. Tydings, who was looking for help write his autobiography. It came out in 2018.

While working on the Tydings’ book, Gerry L. Brewster, whom Frece had known when Brewster was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, suggested the life story of his father, U.S. Senator Daniel B. Brewster, would also make a good book. Brewster and Tydings had served in the Senate together in the turbulent 1960s.

Frece graduated from the College of William & Mary in Virginia in 1969 and was honorably discharged as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1971. He is married to the children’s book author Priscilla Cummings, author of 18 picture books for young children and eight novels for older children. (More information about her writing can be found at PriscillaCummings.com)

John and Priscilla live in Annapolis. They have two grown children, William and Hannah.