Defining variables shared between Makefile.am files

[vicious3030]

I'm working on putting together my first automake project, 3 executables,
multiple convenience libraries, among a few folders.
It includes some third party libraries and header files that are stored
elsewhere.
I'd like to have a central variable (thirdPartyPath=/home/blah/third) that
holds the path to this directory (as well as other include dirs) that can be
accessed by all Makefile.am's (mine_CPPFLAGS = -I$(thirdPartyPath)) so I
don't have to define it in every file. At the moment I can't seem to get the
.am files to share variable definitions. 

Additionally is there a way that I can have all the PROGRAMS build into one
common bin directory even though the sources and makefiles reside in
different folders?

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