AIAC PREMIERES THE LIBERTY BELL THAT RINGS WITHIN US, A MUSICAL TRIBUTE TO THE LIBERTY BELL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Philadelphia, PA - July 4, 2026 - American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) today debuted The Liberty Bell That Rings Within Us, an original musical video tribute to the Liberty Bell, released worldwide on YouTube and Vimeo. Composed in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the tribute features original lyrics, music, and orchestration by AIAC Chair L. M. Levie, with videography by AIAC Vice President Isabel C. Carro-Toro.

The work traces the story of the nation through the Bell itself - from its casting in Philadelphia and the inscription that called for liberty to be proclaimed throughout the land, through the silence that followed its famous fracture, the Civil War, the long struggles for women's suffrage and civil rights, and on to the Bell's enduring place in the American conscience. What begins as the history of an icon becomes a meditation on freedom as something not granted by fate, but"earned through toil and tears and sacrifice."

Released on Independence Day, the tribute was presented to the America 250 Commission Chair Rosie Rios and to Ellis Island Honors Society Chair Nasser Kazeminy, and met with broad, bipartisan acclaim, drawing recognition within hours from a distinguished and politically diverse group of leaders across public life, the arts, business, finance, philanthropy, medicine, the law, and the military.

Praise for the tribute came from, among others:

Systematized biographical entries with consistent formatting conventions

• Susan Rockefeller - Award winning filmmaker, conservationist, ocean advocate, and philanthropist

• Phil Lader - Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom; Former Administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration; Former Assistant to the President and White House Deputy Chief of Staff; Former Deputy Director, U.S. Office of Management and Budget; Co-Founder, Renaissance Weekend; Former Chairman, WPP

• General David Petraeus, U.S. Army (Ret.) - General Partner, KKR; Chairman, KKR Global Institute; Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency; Former Commander, U.S. Central Command; Former Commander, U.S. and NATO Forces in Afghanistan; Former Commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq

• Governor Janet Mills - Governor of Maine; Former Attorney General of Maine

• Governor Abigail Spanberger - Governor of Virginia; Former U.S. Representative, Virginia; Former CIA Case Officer

• Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg - U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; Former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

• Ambassador Paula Dobriansky - Former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs; Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School; Vice Chair, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

• Israel Englander - Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Millennium Management

• Adam Aron - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, AMC Entertainment; Former Chief Executive Officer, Vail Resorts; Former Chief Executive Officer, Norwegian Cruise Line; Former President and CEO, Philadelphia 76ers; Former Senior Executive, Starwood Hotels & Resorts

• Richard Fontaine - Chief Executive Officer, Center for a New American Security; Former Foreign Policy Advisor, McCain for President; Former Associate Director for Near East Affairs, National Security Council; Former Foreign Affairs Officer, U.S. Department of State

• Jeffrey Sonnenfeld - Senior Associate Dean, Yale School of Management; Founder and CEO, Chief Executive Leadership Institute; Lester Crown Professor of Management Practice

• Sandy Climan - President, Entertainment Media Ventures; Former CEO, CAA; Producer, The Aviator

• Joel Myers - Founder and Chairman, AccuWeather

• Dr. Margaret Chustecki - Founder and Director, Internal Medicine of Greater New Haven; Assistant Professor, Yale School of Medicine

• Nancy Brown - Chief Executive Officer, American Heart Association

AIAC Chair L. M. Levie issued the following statement:

"Two and a half centuries ago, above a modest hall in Philadelphia, a single bell rang out with a proclamation larger than its age: that liberty is the birthright not of the few, but of all - no gift of any government, but a possession of every soul within the land. Cast in bronze before it could be secured in life, the bell cracked beneath the weight of so vast a promise. Yet we do not mourn the crack; we revere it - the mark of a people who dared to utter a principle no single generation could fulfill.

The keeping of that principle passed neither to statues nor to scholars, but to the people - to the founders who declared it, the generations who defended it, and the citizens of every age who labored that its promise might be more fully realized. This tribute is not remembrance alone, but responsibility: we gather not to admire what was handed down, but to accept and embrace what is still asked of us - that no generation may spend this inheritance without renewing it.

And so, upon this Fourth of July, in a nation too often reminded of what divides it, we reach for something older and steadier than our quarrels - a note first struck in Philadelphia that neither time nor discord has ever silenced. It answers to no single party, nor region, nor passing age; it sounds in the conscience of a whole people, and it belongs to every American alike.

"Let it be ours, then, to prove worthy of that note: to pass on enlarged the freedom we received undiminished; to lend the bell, silent in its bronze, a living voice in our deeds; and to leave those who will one day stand where we now stand the same summons we ourselves have heard. This summons is the abiding proof that liberty, once given voice, is never truly silenced, but carried onward, from heart to heart and from age to age, so long as free men and women find the courage to answer it."

The Liberty Bell That Rings Within Us is available now, free of charge, on YouTube, Vimeo, and LinkedIn.

About the Liberty Bell: A Symbol All Americans Share

Few objects unite Americans across the political spectrum quite like the Liberty Bell. Whether one emphasizes the enduring wisdom of the nation's founding or the long work of extending its blessings to every citizen, the bell speaks to both. It is at once a monument to the principles established at the country's birth and a reminder of the ongoing effort to honor them. That dual meaning is precisely why it has belonged to no single party or era, but to the whole American story.

The bell began not as a monument but as ordinary municipal equipment. In 1751, the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly ordered it for the tower of the Pennsylvania State House-now Independence Hall-and had it cast at London's Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It cracked on its very first test ringing. Rather than send it back, two local artisans, John Pass and John Stow, melted it down and recast it twice until they produced the bell that survives today, their names still inscribed on it. From humble and even accidental beginnings, an icon was made.

Around its crown runs a line from the Book of Leviticus: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof." The words were chosen to honor William Penn's charter and its principles of self-government and religious tolerance-ideals that Americans of every persuasion still hold dear. Those same principles, articulated by the founding generation, proved powerful enough to inspire later Americans to hold the country to its own highest standards. When abolitionists adopted the bell as their emblem in the 1830s and gave it the name that stuck, they did not reject the nation's founding ideals; they appealed to them, insisting that the promise of liberty be fulfilled for all.

That pattern-citizens invoking the founders' own words to expand the reach of freedom-is one of the most admirable features of the American experiment, and it is a story conservatives and progressives alike can claim with pride. Popular legend holds that the bell rang to summon Philadelphians to the first reading of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Historians regard that particular scene as a later embellishment, but the bell's true significance was never confined to a single dramatic moment. Its meaning accumulated across generations who looked to it as a touchstone for liberty and self-government.

Even the famous crack, which developed in the nineteenth century and left the bell permanently unringable despite an attempt at repair, has come to feel fitting. It reminds Americans that a free society is never a finished project but a shared inheritance to be maintained, defended, and passed on. A gleaming, flawless bell might have been admired and forgotten; the one we have invites reflection.

Today the bell rests in the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia, near Independence Hall, where it has drawn Americans of every background and belief-and served as a gathering point for causes from suffrage to civil rights. Its greatness lies in this: it honors what the founders achieved while calling each generation to carry that work forward. Cracked but standing, silent yet eloquent, the Liberty Bell belongs to all Americans, and it asks of all of us the same enduring commitment to liberty.

For further information, please see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Bell

https://www.nps.gov/inde/learn/historyculture/stories-libertybell.htm

About American Industrial Acquisition Corporation

American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) is a diversified industrial group with manufacturing, distribution, and administrative sites in 24 countries in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia-New Zealand. AIAC has acquired and grown non-core subsidiaries and divisions of Boeing, Siemens, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Johnson Controls, Merck, Pfizer, Astellas, Visteon, Carlyle, KKR, Ahlstrom, Novellis, Tolko, Groupe Suez, Groupe Rexel, and many other leading multinational corporations.

AIAC companies serve companies and governmental entities worldwide in all major sectors, including aviation, space, defense, automotive, truck, rail, marine, petrochemical, solar, nuclear, civil engineering, logistics, agriculture, infrastructure, commercial construction, mining, dredging, disaster relief, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals. In addition, AIAC companies are exclusive, authorized distributors of leading branded industrial products and serve as critical suppliers for the construction of major airports, schools, hospitals, performing arts and sports centers, offices and hotels throughout Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. AIAC is a major manufacturer of materials for green houses globally, building, street, and highway signage in Europe, and a distributor of electrical products throughout France.

Of note, AIAC purchased Boeing Canada in 2005 and has produced over 10,000 unique components for every Boeing jet plane ever since, reliably serving Boeing from manufacturing facilities in North America. A leader in ultra-high precision jet engine component manufacturing, AIAC companies produce 2,200 fan blades for each jet engine produced by GE, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and Honeywell.

AIAC companies actively support exploration into outer space, manufacturing critical components for launching and propelling spacecraft and satellites. AIAC customers in this sector include NASA, SpaceX, the European Space Agency, Blue Origin, and Boeing. AIAC companies also lead in the design and manufacture of undersea umbilical cables for worldwide oceanographic research.

AIAC companies produce the critical automotive wire and cable for Tesla, GM, Ford, Chrysler-Fiat, Toyota, and Nissan and for the New York and Atlanta Subways. In connection with its kraft paper manufacturing interests in Canada and the US, AIAC sustainably manages 22 million acres of Manitoba, Canada forestland, an area equivalent in size to the nation of Hungary. AIAC affiliate, Metallwarenfabrik Gemmingen GmbH, located in Germany, designs, manufactures and distributes high performance, emergency portable power generators utilized in global conflict zones and during major natural disasters.

For further information, please see: www.aiac.com

AIAC Philanthropy

AIAC and the AIAC Foundation support a wide range of nonprofit, nonsectarian, bipartisan organizations which promote international conflict resolution, disaster relief, economic development, environmental sustainability, exploration, and the performing arts. The exploration-focused nonprofit organizations which they actively support include The Explorers Club, the National Geographic Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Mission Blue, the Jane Goodall Institute, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Space Society, and the United States Space Foundation.

AIAC Chairman L. M. Levie is a Trustee and Poet Laureate of The Explorers Club, a Trustee of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is Chairman of the Seabed Curtain Project, an initiative working to address rising global sea levels. AIAC and its affiliates - Bradford Space, Canadian Kraft Paper Industries, SuperAlloy Manufacturing Solutions, and Champlain Cable - are Partners of The Explorers Club, World Oceans Week, Climate Week, and the Explorers Club Annual Dinner.

For further information, see: www.aiac.com | https://www.aiac.com/our-values

Media Contact:

Isabel Carro-Toro, Vice President
American Industrial Acquisition Corporation
+34 689 295 827 (Spain)
+1 787 244 3175 (USA)
[email protected]

# # #