History
2025In September 2025, the company was proudly purchased by longtime employee Jim Budke. This transition ensures that the Nicol Group of Companies — including Nicol Scales & Measurement and JP Bowlin — will continue operating as a family-owned, locally managed Texas-based business.
Under Jim’s leadership, Nicol Group will build on the strong foundation established over the past 94 years by the Nicol family, the Bowlin family and Ted Tobolka. We remain committed to strengthening and expanding our weighing and measurement services, enhancing our calibration capabilities and pursuing new opportunities across the broader measurement market.
Our mission remains the same: to deliver accuracy and quality that people can trust.
2025NSM is now in San Antonio. Due to rapid growth in the San Antonio area, we have relocated our Central Texas branch from Buda to San Antonio. Our new facility in San Antonio is twice as large as our previous location. Our new office also features NSM’s third temperature-controlled metrology calibration lab that allows us to service our San Antonio and Austin area customers with much faster turnaround times.
2021In 2021 we celebrate the 90th Anniversary of our company. We trace our lineage back to the JP Bowlin Company founded in Fort Worth in 1931. Bill Nicol worked for Joe Bowlin for a number of years before setting out on his own and starting Nicol Scales in Dallas in 1948. When Ted Tobolka bought Nicol Scales and then JP Bowlin, it brought the two companies back together as one organization. Our company has seen a lot of change and has adapted and grown quite a bit in 90 years. Read More >
2020NSM was awarded with our final accreditation to both ISO/IEC 17025:2017 and ANSI-Z540. In addition, our scope of calibration capabilities nearly doubled to 23 pages. 
2019In 2019, both the Dallas branch and the Houston branch of Nicol Scales and Measurement were awarded Best and Brightest Companies to Work For.
2018Nicol Scales & Measurement is excited to announce our recent expansion into the Central Texas area. Our newest branch is strategically located on the south side of Austin to serve the metro Austin area, the I-35 corridor from Waco south into San Antonio and all of the Hill Country region. By adding this fourth brick and mortar location, we are now able to provide same day on-site calibration, repair and sales support to more than half of the State of Texas.
Our four locations in the “Texas Triangle” put us less than a 3-hour drive away from roughly 80% of the state’s population, along with southern Oklahoma and western Louisiana.
2017In 2017, Nicol Scales and Measurement purchases York Scales in Houston and rolls their operations into the Houston branch.
Also in 2017, Nicol Scales and Measurement enters the Austin market with a full-service satellite office. This enables us to better serve our current customers in the Hill Country area.
2012In 2012, the Nicol Scales company name was officially changed to Nicol Scales and Measurement.
The change truly reflects the company as it operates today. The addition of Measurement to our name accurately reflects the broadened scope of measurement products and Instrument Calibration Services offered today.
2010In July of 2010, the company expanded its ISO scope of accreditation to include Dimensional, Temperature, Pressure and Timers.
The growth into this scope allowed us to offer our customers Instrument Calibrations Services out of our newly established Calibration Service Teams in Houston and in Dallas (2011). We are now offering “Single Source” calibration solutions to our customers.
2004As part of the aggressive plan to expand into existing markets and to grow into new ones, Mr. Tobolka purchased the JP Bowlin Company in 2004.
In a strange twist of fate, the company was one again, allowing the company to operate under two names with similar rich histories as well as expand into the larger Industrial market with a local presence. This allowed us to effectively compete in Houston and surrounding regions.
2000In December of 2000 Nicol Scales, LP received ISO 17025:2000 Accreditation from Perry Johnson Laboratories, Inc. as an accredited calibration lab.
1999In August 1999 the company was purchased by Ted Tobolka, a longtime employee. The company quickly began to expand its focus to increase services, pursuing opportunities in the broader measurement market.
Along with the expansion into the new markets, Nicol Scales initiated a plan to meet the quality needs of our customers by successfully completing a “Total Quality Operating System” that allowed for application as an ISO accredited company.
1980During the early 1980’s the company leadership transitioned from Bill & Noreen’s daughter, Nicki “Nicol “ Huber. She built upon the strong legacy that her parents had built in the Scales Industry with the introduction of technology and automation.
Nicki oversaw the evolution of the operations from paper based to cutting edge IT solutions. She expanded the direction of the companies sales to include factory automation and inventory bar code systems.
1960The company quickly grew in the emerging industrial market to become one of the premier scale distributors in Texas operating as Nicol Scales, Inc.
The company offered products and services geared toward manufacturing and agricultural markets, later adding force and material test products to further meet the needs of its customers.
1948In 1948 Bill Nicol, a graduate Engineer from SMU, managed the JP Bowlin office in Dallas, Texas.
He, along with his wife Noreen Nicol, founded the William F. Nicol Scale and Machinery Company.
1931The company was founded in 1931 as the JP Bowlin Company, based in Fort Worth, Texas.
The company worked exclusively in the Retail Grocery Market, providing food machines, scales, slicers, packaging machines and refrigeration equipment throughout the Southwest.