The Florida Keys Community College's new interim president said he prefers the board of trustees stays about "30,000 feet" away and lets him do his job.

"I like it that way," Larry Tyree said at a press conference Tuesday, his second day on the job.

Tyree comes to the college after two years of turmoil that saw former President Jill Landesberg-Boyle accuse trustees and others of meeting with employees behind her back and orchestrating her ouster.

Tyree said he wants to establish boundaries and insist employees follow the chain of command when filing complaints.

"I believe that the trustees manage one person -- the president," Tyree said. "The president is responsible for managing the employees of the college."

The trustees should have a broader, more distant view of the college -- like from an airplane cruising at 30,000 feet -- while he handles the day-to-day details, including the college's ability to generate money and expand, he said.

After more than two years of enrollment-expansion and curriculum-broadening under Boyle, Tyree said he'll continue to ensure the college schedules classes to match the schedules of full-time and part-time students who work during the day. His business approach to running a community college -- institutions that live and die on government funding and private donations -- is conservative, Tyree said.

"My business philosophy is very conservative, and especially in these [economic] times, we have the responsibility to be prudent with our resources," he said. "We need to be expeditious with our revenue resources here."

Tyree repeatedly has said he wants to move the college forward and out of the recent bitterness former employees have expressed against Boyle, and the frustration current employees have expressed, saying they feared retribution if they complained about how the College Road campus was run.

Tyree said he has exchanged e-mails with Boyle and her predecessor, William Seeker, in recent weeks but would not divulge details of their discussions. He said both expressed their deep love for the college.

"I plan to visit with both of them," he said, as well as meet with every employee before the end of the holidays. He also plans a regular "Ask Larry Anything" session where employees can, well ...

jguerra@keysnews.com