An executive who helped build a collection of independent cable operators into an industry powerhouse is retiring next month, more than three decades after starting his career in Lawrence.

Michael Pandzik, founding president of the National Cable Television Cooperative, said he was leaving the Lenexa-based operation to “try something different.” He is 59.

Pandzik started work for the co-op in October 1984. That’s when a dozen independent cable operators started the organization, seeking to increase their influence in negotiating for lower prices on programming, equipment and supplies.

Today, the co-op expects to channel $1.3 billion in such products and services to its 1,350 independent cable operators, who have 6,300 cable systems in 8,000 communities and 14 million subscribers.

“If we were a single cable system operator, we’d be No. 2 behind Comcast. We’d be a little bit bigger than Time Warner,” Pandzik said. “We have member systems in every state, every U.S. territory and some overseas.”

Pandzik’s cable career started in Lawrence at Sunflower Cablevision, the precursor to Sunflower Broadband, which now provides cable television, telephone and high-speed Internet service in Lawrence and surrounding communities. Sunflower, a charter member of the co-op, is a division of The World Company, which also owns the Journal-World.

Sunflower hired Pandzik in 1971 as program director. He was responsible for starting “The Lawrence Report” – now known as 6News – and dozens of hours of other local programming.

Pandzik, then in graduate school at Kansas University, said he was drawn to the early promise of cable as an industry.

“I was the second employee hired, right after Max Falkenstien,” said Pandzik, who worked at Sunflower as program director and production manager from 1971 to 1973 before leaving for other television jobs that included stops with Hallmark Cards and HBO.

Falkenstien, longtime radio voice of Kansas Jayhawks athletics, was Sunflower’s first general manager.

Pandzik’ departure means that Tom Gleason, the co-op’s current chairman and president of NextWave Communications, will serve as the co-op’s interim president. He also will lead the search for Pandzik’s replacement.

“Mike has grown this organization from its very small beginnings to what is now an integral part of the independent cable operator’s business,” said Gleason, a founding member of the co-op. “We will miss his leadership and his dedication, but we respect his decision to retire.”