Nandhini Srinivasan/The Tributary

Personal connections, aggressive lobbying and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions fueled the rapid rise of an obscure school bus camera vendor, BusPatrol, which quickly became a major player in a niche industry that didn’t exist in Florida until last year. That success represented a remarkable turnaround for a company with a troubled history of allegations that it values revenue over public safety and opportunity over ethics. BusPatrol’s reversal in fortunes, already evident in other states, echoes the comeback of Florida state Rep. Vicki Lopez, once a down-and-out Lee County commissioner, with whom BusPatrol is inextricably linked.