My grandfather was second to the youngest of six surviving siblings. He was academically inclined whereas his siblings like their father Domingo engaged in commerce, tradescraft, or farmed which did not require much formal schooling (but at which they were successful). While attending high school at the Ateneo in Manila, he was singled out and chosen from among 20,000 bright students all over the country to be educated in America's best colleges. At 19, he and about 30 other youths left for the US in 1904 where he at first was sent to an agricultural college in Ames, Iowa. Preferring a career in civil engineering, he moved to Cornell in Ithaca, New York where he graduated in 1909.

After a short stint working in Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, he returned to the Philippines and joined the faculty of the newly formed UP college of engineering. In recognition of his teaching and research, he was appointed professorial chair of engineering.Prior to WWII, President Quezon called him from academia and asked him to head the new Metropolitan Waterworks Admininistration and to build the system that supples water to all of Greater Manila and the new capital Quezon City. His services to the public continued on even in his private enterprise. He cofounded A. Magsaysay, Inc., a pioneer in training and creating a demand for Filipino seamen to man merchant ships all over the world.