Peter L. Heinzmann received the Dipl. El. Ing. and Dr. Sc. Techn. degrees from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, in 1979 and 1987, respectively. From 1979 to 1987 he worked at the Institute for Communication Technology, ETH Zurich, in the areas of number theory, cryptography, fiber optics and LAN/MAN. Starting in 1984 he managed the research group "Fiber Optics and Local Area Networking". In 1987, Dr. Heinzmann joined the IBM Research Division, Zurich Research Laboratory, Rueschlikon, Switzerland, where he worked in the High-Speed LAN/MAN group, focusing on architectural and network reconfiguration issues.

In April 1991, he joined the faculty of the University of Applied Sciences in Rapperswil (HSR), where he is Professor for Informatics. He has been very active in the University’s Industry Relations Program doing projects which are best described with the headline "Explore the Technology and Demonstrate the Benefits of Information and Telecommunication Networks". At HSR Prof. Heinzmann founded the Institute for Internet Technologies and Applications (ITA) which he headed until 2002. His current research interests are in the areas of Internet Security, Internet Performance and Special Internet Applications.

Since 1992 more than 2000 people have attended Professor Heinzmann’s numerous courses and seminars on subjects like "How to use the Internet", "Networking Technologies", “Internet Security” or “Electronic and Mobile Business”.  

In February 1997 Prof. P. Heinzmann founded the cnlab Information Technology AG together with Dr. P. Schöbi. By January 1998 the HSR changed his position to "Hauptlehrer with Teilzeitanstellung" (part time professorship) which allowed to reduce the lecturing in favor of commercial activities. Cnlab does “engineering based consulting” with major focus on Internet Security and Performance for leading organizations in Switzerland.