Enterprise Uniform Co.: An Unsung Hero for Detroit’s Frontline Workers

Lynne Burgess-Holmes didn’t know many dads like hers.

When Lynne was growing up in the 1950s on Detroit’s west side, Leroy Burgess set aside an entire room of their house for his miniature train set. He built gas-propelled remote-controlled airplanes, and he’d gather kids from their neighborhood on Dexter and Columbus to take turns flying them.

In the summer, he took Lynne and her brother canoeing at Palmer Park. In the winter, they went ice skating at Belle Isle and the St. Hedwig’s ice arena. He could identify just about any plant by name in both English and Latin.

Leroy was born in Georgia in 1920 to a family of sharecroppers. He served in World War II before eventually relocating to Detroit. Leroy brought home a steady living as a driver for the Department of Street Railways (renamed the Detroit Department of Transportation in 1974). And although he never made it past the sixth grade, he encouraged his children to attend college.

But a year or so into Lynne’s studies at Wayne State University, when she was 19, she would embark on a major business venture with her dad (and still graduate with a bachelor’s in business administration).

With just $10,000 after remortgaging the family home, Leroy and Lynne opened Enterprise Uniform Co. in 1971 on the corner of Woodward and Euclid. The idea had been brewing in Leroy’s head for some time: He saw the market for a brick-and-mortar that sold bus uniforms.

However, in its first two years, Enterprise struggled. The business was waiting on approval for the coveted payroll deduction system, which would allow drivers to purchase uniforms through smaller payments deducted from their paychecks rather than all cash up front.

But one of Enterprise’s first customers would bring good fortune for years to come: a postal worker and union steward who helped Enterprise get its first postal license.

“If it was not for the post office, we would not have survived,” Lynne says. “This was back in the ’70s, and it was a Black pride era. It was a blessing for us because the community supported us beyond belief.”

Soon after, her father befriended a man who oversaw purchasing for the security company that serviced the Highland Park Chrysler Plant. He gave Enterprise a small contract, which would eventually expand to cover factories in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Canada.

In 1974, the business relocated four blocks east of Woodward to its present storefront, 2862 E. Grand Boulevard.

By the late ’70s, Enterprise was responsible for the uniforms worn by Renaissance Center security. And by 1981, the store became so profitable that a second location opened in Atlanta. (It has since been sold).

In his time, Leroy became well acquainted with many local politicians and bigwigs, such as Erma Henderson, the first Black woman elected to Detroit City Council. (“He used to drive her around,” Lynne says.)

A major account for many years was JOWA Security, run by John T. Coursey, who was close with Motown Records CEO Berry Gordy and served as his security director when the label was in Detroit.

Lynne estimates that Enterprise has contracted with nearly every division of the city at some point. Getting a uniform at Enterprise became a rite of passage for Detroit Police Department recruits entering the force. Lynne has fitted numerous officers from hire to retire. For years, she’s known current chief of police Todd Bettison, who has been with the department since 1994.

Shortly after the city declared bankruptcy, Bettison was deputy chief. As Lynne recalls, the department was late on money it owed to Enterprise around that time. Bettison grew weary after multiple attempts to have the city satisfy the payment.

“I’ll be right back,” he told her before leaving the office and simply withdrawing the money from his own bank account.

“That brings tears in my eyes almost right now thinking about it,” says Lynne.

Lynne’s daughter, Lai Holmes, now 35, practically grew up in the building. She still helps her mom out with clerical work but is currently planning to start her own wellness business. She likens her early memories of Enterprise to the film Barbershop.

“It was a place where everybody can go have a laugh and feel like they have some sense of family there,” Lai says. “Someone could have lost their job, then they come here and they can put food on their table for their families.”

Leroy retired from his business in 2006 and died just three years later, succumbing to dementia. In his memory, Lynne established the Leroy Burgess Scholarship.

But unlike a conventional scholarship, the fund is reserved for students with a GPA between 2.0 and 2.9. Lynne thought Leroy would want the scholarship to go to young people who, like him, “had to fight their way for whatever [they] had.”

Today, Enterprise is the last remaining uniform store of its kind in Detroit. In late 2025, it earned a small grant as part of Detroit’s Legacy Business Project. The newly elected Mayor Mary Sheffield recognized Enterprise and the other recipients as the “backbone of our neighborhoods for generations” in her speech at the ceremony.

Says Lynne, “I wanted to put [the award] up somewhere and say, ‘Detroit, thank you!’ Because it’s a legacy of not just me. I didn’t do it by myself. I sacrificed a lot, don’t get me wrong, but it took the community [to sustain us].”