[Mediawiki-l] Store data in an template

[Mediawiki]

Hi,

is there a way to store  general information in a template and access parts 
of that information by a conditional call of the template?

An example could be a list of first name and surname of people working in 
defined positions in different departments. A template call to find out the 
Surname could then look like this

{{People_Info
|Department=DepartementA
|Position=Accountant
|Surname}}

where DepartementA and Accountant define which surname has to be displayed.

I tried a lot with the parser functions #if and #ifeq but the result is not 
really satisfying.

Is there an 'easier' solution available?

Albert