<td><h:commandButton id="view" class="myButton2" value="view" action="#{searchBean.displayCompanyName()}">

                    <f:setPropertyActionListener target="#{searchBean.locationsList}" value="#{locationslist}" />

                </h:commandButton></td>

<table>

        <tr>
        <td><div class="white"><H2>Work Locations</H2></div>
            <div class="tables"><h:dataTable value="#{searchBean.locationsList}" var="l" border="1">

                <div class="td"><h:column>
                <div class="th"><f:facet name="header">
                <div class="generaltext3">County</div>
                </f:facet></div>
                <div class="generaltext2">#{l}</div>

//NOTE: here when I call l, it just returns a reference to the objects
// in the list. I don't have access to the elements within the object
//from here (ie: l.countyname is not allowed (where countyname
// is one of the elements of the Locations object))

                </h:column></div>
            </h:dataTable></div>

            </td>
        </tr>


    </table>

@ManagedBean
@SessionScoped
public class SearchBean implements Serializable {

private List<Locations> locationsList=new ArrayList<Locations>();

public void setLocationsList(List<Locations> locationsList) {
    this.locationsList = locationsList;
}

public List<Locations> getLocationsList(){

    return locationsList;
}