Mark E. Frels, CAE, Ret. was born and raised on a multigenerational family grain and livestock farm near Hillsdale, Illinois, in upper Rock Island County. He is an honors graduate of Iowa Wesleyan University. During two summer programs, he studied language and culture at the University of Madrid, Spain. Mark began his professional association-management career with the Illinois Farm Bureau as a county Farm Bureau manager trainee in 1977. That same year, he was hired as the Knox County Farm Bureau manager, a position he held for approximately ten years. He was named Illinois Farm Bureau regional manager in 1986, covering Regions 1A and 1B, comprising thirty-six counties in the northern third of Illinois. In 1993, he was named Illinois Farm Bureau director of field services, taking his management abilities to the Illinois Farm Bureau headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois, to lead that division. Following that appointment, he was named executive director of member services and public relations and a member of the Illinois Farm Bureau management team, reporting directly to the president of the organization.

The Illinois Farm Bureau (corporate name: Illinois Agricultural Association) is the largest volunteer membership association of farmers and those supporting agriculture in the state of Illinois, with well over 400,000 members. In addition, the Illinois Farm Bureau is one of the largest state farm bureaus in the country. Throughout his career, Mark worked with farmers and leaders at the grassroots level and was responsible for a wide variety of personnel and human-resources functions and programs, including membership acquisition and maintenance, training and development, Agriculture in the Classroom, the regional manager program, the county Farm Bureau manager program, the Rural Illinois Medical Student Loan Program, the annual convention of the association, the county Farm Bureau manager-trainee program, the arrangements for the state association to participate in the national American Farm Bureau Federation convention, and a number of other functions and administrative activities, including personnel administration and budgeting.

Mark is a certified association executive, achieving that designation from the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) in 1986. Mark retired in 2013. He and his wife, Ann, a retired high school English teacher and retired municipal employee for the town of Normal, Illinois, now reside in rural Wyanet, Illinois.