Erin Dobratz

Erin Patricia Dobratz (born October 19, 1982 in Concord, California), later known by her married name Erin McGregor, is a retired American synchronized swimmer who trained with the Walnut Creek Aquanuts, competed for Stanford, and won a bronze medal in the team event in synchronized swimming at the 2004 Athens Olympics. After her athletic career, she worked as an executive and entrepreneur in the field of digital asset technology.

Early life and competition Born October 18, 1982 in Concord, California, to Carl and Judy Dobratz, Erin graduated Concord's Clayton Valley High School in 2000, and swam for Clayton Valley High, likely in freestyle events where she gained endurance, an essential skill required for synchronized swimmers. She trained in synchronized swimming with the Walnut Creek Aquanuts and was coached throughout High School by Head Aquanuts Coach Gail Pucci and Pamela Edwards. The Aquanuts program was earlier founded by Hall of Fame Coach Gail Emery. In 1998, she also placed second at the Jr. Nationals in team competition, and at the U.S. Open finished second in team competition while placing third in duet as an individual competitor.

Stanford University She attended Stanford University from 2001-2005, intending to graduate in communications. She competed for the Stanford Cardinal women's synchronized swimming team where she was coached by Heather Pease-Olson, a 1996 Olympic gold medalist in syncronized swimming who as coach led the Stanford women to four NCAA Championships between 2001-2012. Like Dobratz, Pease had formerly competed and trained in synchronized swimming with both the Aquanuts and Stanford where she was an All-American in 1997-98. In fraternal organizations, Dobratz was a member of Pi Beta Phi Sorority. Accomplished in her collegiate career, in 2001 she placed third in duet and second in team at the America's Cup. At Collegiate Nationals for the 2002 season, Erin captured a third place in Duet, trio, and team competition. In her early years at Stanford in 2001, she was an Academic All-American, and in collegiate nationals that year captured a second overall place in competition with second places in team, duet and trio. She took time off from Stanford in the 2003-2004 season to prepare for the 2004 Olympics. At a high point in her collegiate career in 2003, she was selected to train with the 2004 Olympic squad. In that same year, Dobratz added a gold to her career hardware in the group competition at the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

2004 Athens Olympic bronze medal Dobratz qualified for the women's team routine, as a member of the American squad, at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. She took a year off from her studies at Stanford to prepare for the games. With Dobratz's participation, the Americans secured a third-place technical merit score of 48.584 points, and had a free routine of 48.834 to accumulate a total score of 97.418, placing third in the women's team event for the bronze. The Russian team took the gold, with the team from Japan taking the silver medal.

Post-swimming careers Dobratz-McGregor used her Stanford degree in communications to work as an entrepreneur and executive in the field of digital asset technology. Digital assets include videos, images, documents, audio, cryptocurrencies, software code, and NFT's, which are primarily digital indentifiers of ownership. A rather broad field, digital asset management includes the storage and management of digital assets, tools that protect digital assets, ensuring proper copyright and liscensing, and distribution, reuse and archiving of digital assets. In a simpler definition, digital assets are anything in digital form that have usage rights, or a specific form of permission for use.