Inventor Sheryl McDonald made it past over 10,000 other hopefuls to become one of the top 12 Inventors on ABC's American Inventor. Her invention, Inbrella, is a fully-functioning umbrella that works in reverse. The idea came to her one rainy day in 2004 when she was heading out the door to her job as an airline agent. Dressed in her required uniform of a skirt-suit, panty hose and pumps she grabbed her trusty umbrella and attempted to enter her new car in the pouring rain. Finding it impossible to close her umbrella without scratching the roof of her car and remaining dry once the sopping-wet umbrella made its way into her vehicle she shouted "Why can't someone invent an inverting umbrella?" She now proudly refers to that as her "lightbulb moment". 

 As fate began to deal her an uncertain future of unemployment she found herself laid-off from her job in September of 2005. Her partner, Denise Howard, believed Sheryl's passion and in the potential success of Inbrella so she encouraged Sheryl to "make Inbrella her full-time job". It was then that fate stepped in again, offering her the opportunity of a lifetime. Within 2 months of being released from her job she found herself on a wave of forward motion making her invention come to life. Fate had certainly dealt her an unfamiliar but extremely valuable hand which was displayed this past spring on American Inventor.

Sheryl was born and raised in the San Francisco bay area by a loving and supportive family and moved to Southern California the summer of 2000 where she met Denise through an on-line dating service. They are a "blended family" of 2 dog moms, 4 mortal dogs and one "angel pup" who passed away in 2004. To celebrate their 40th birthdays in 2005, Denise treated them to a Hawaiian vacation and unbenknownst to her, was surprised with a white-sand beach nuptials ceremony planned by Sheryl. In addition to moving forward with Inbrella's ultimate destiny of store shelves (estimated for holiday time 2007) Sheryl is busy working on a lesbian story screenplay while Denise continues her work as an editor on feature films. They both eagerly await what fate has in store for them and anticipate success beyond measure!