AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott has appointed a chair and three new members to the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, with two of the new appointees coming from the Austin area.
Eric Nichols was appointed as the chair of the board, while Bill Welch, Nate Sprinkle and Sydney Zuiker will serve on the board through Feb. 1, 2029, when their terms are set to expire.
Nichols is an Austin native and a partner at the Butler Snow LLP law firm. He previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas and as Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice in the Office of the Texas Attorney General. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the Texas Bar Foundation and the Austin Bar Foundation. Nichols is also a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates and the State Bar of Texas and is a trustee of the University of Texas Law School Foundation, where he received his law degree.
Welch, another Austin native, is a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general. According to a press release from the governor's office, Welch has previously held multiple senior leadership positions in security and law enforcement.
Welch is also a founder and former CEO of Apptronik, Inc., an Austin-based advanced robotics company. He received a degree in criminal justice from the Community College of the Air Force, a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Boston University and a Master of Science in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas at Austin.
Sprinkle is a native of Richmond, Texas, near Houston. He is a senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Rosenberg and previously volunteered in pre-release rehabilitation programs in North and South Texas. According to the press release, he currently counsels individuals in Fort Bend County after they are released.
Sprinkle received a Bachelor of Science in Math and Computer Science from Sul Ross State University in Alpine and a Master of Mission Science from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth.
Sydney Zuiker is a Houston native who is currently the director of the Safe Community Institute for Crime Stoppers of Houston. She is a board member of Demand Disruption and a committee member for Advocates for the Children of Texas and Houston Rescue and Restore Coalition.
In 2021, Zuiker was recognized as one of Houston Business Journal's "40 Under 40" honorees for her public safety work in the community. Zuiker received a Bachelor's Degree in Social Work from UT Austin and a Master's in Legal Forensic Psychology from the University of California, Irvine.
The Texas Board of Criminal Justice oversees the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and provides confinement, supervision, rehabilitation and reintegration of Texans convicted of felonies.
According to the National Institute of Corrections, as of 2020, Texas has 252 prisons and a jail population of 69,610 people; 2020 is the latest year's data reported from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBI.